INSPIRATION 
-OR DAILY LIVING 



Selections from the Writings of 
LYMAN ABBOTT. D.D. 




Class. 

Book 

Copyright^ 



CDEXffiGHT DEPOSIT. 



INSPIRATION FOR DAILY LIVING 



Read . . . for information or for 
inspiration; and do not forget in your 
reading those books which appeal 
directly and immediately to what we 
call the religious faculties — reverence, 
faith , hope, and love— Lyman Abbott 



INSPIRATION 
FOR DAILY LIVING 

Selections from the Writings of 
LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D. 



Selected and Arranged by 
O. E. P. S. 



Inspiration is not an episode; it is a universal 
experience. — Lyman Abbott 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON CHICAGO 



3X7/17 

A% 



COPTRIGHT 1919 

Bt ALBERT W. FELL 



THE PILGRIM PRESS 
BOSTON 



©CU5598-53 



or 




'o 



INSPIRATION 
FOR DAILY LIVING 

January First 

We have given our pledge of helpfulness one to 
another. In us still is the spirit of war and greed and 
selfishness and ambition and pride, and we know it 
full well. But we have agreed one with another that 
we will help one another in personal battle. Each 
one of us will help his neighbor; he will help you, 
and you will help him, and each of us will help the 
other to stand strong. We will be more honest in 
business; we will be more loyal in government; we 
will be truer in politics; we will be kinder in the house- 
hold; we will be better men and women, — because 
we know other people are fighting the same battle, 
doing the same work, running the same race, giving 
us their sympathy, as we are giving them ours. 
We have joined our hands in a common pledge to do 
what we can for the world. We have united for the 
purpose of telling others of this Leader, and of this 
life. We see about us men who are in discourage- 
ment and despair ; men who think you must fall into 
the currents of society and do as society does; that 
it is impossible to be honest, divinely honest in com- 

1 



merce, as it is carried on to-day; men who are under 
such stress and pressure that they say, It is no use, 
I must either join in the current or be trampled 
underfoot. And we have joined hands to say, It is 
false: God does reign; there is a good God; the sun- 
shine is more than the blast; God is more than the 
devil; goodness and righteousness are more than sin 
and selfishness. We can and we will conquer, and the 
kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of 
our Lord and of his Christ. We come to this promise : 
" Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good 
pleasure to give you the kingdom." We remember 
it was said to the twelve, and now it is said over again 
to millions, that are no longer a little flock, and we 
take courage. 

®tje Sfaro f ear 

January Second 

We begin on the new year the beginning of a new 
life if we will. How will you walk this coming year? 
Will you seek for liberty by independence or by 
obedience? Will you seek for success by selfishness 
or by service? Will you seek for happiness by self- 
indulgence or by sacrifice? . . . God help us more 
and more to hear that higher and nobler and diviner 
voice, that the other may grow stiller and dimmer 
and more distant, till we shall hear it not at all. 

Father, who sent Thy Son into the world to be 
the light of the world, lighten our darkness we be- 
seech Thee. We, Thy children, know neither our- 
selves nor the life that lies before us. Prepare us for 

2 



what Thou art preparing for us. Keep us from the 
ambition that covets great tasks. Keep us from the 
cowardice that evades the tasks to which Thou dost 
call us. Keep us from despair because of our failures. 
Keep us from self-conceit because of our successes. 
By Thy companionship equip us for the high adven- 
ture of life. To every call of duty may we respond, 
Lo! I come to do Thy will, O God. Ever forgetting 
what we have left behind, may we press forward in 
eager response to Thine upward calling in Christ 
Jesus. Amen. 

aspiration 

January Third 

We are not what we are; we are what we desire to 
be, what our purpose is, what our resolves make us. 
You can set that before you. You cannot win the 
race instantly, but you can begin to run it. You 
cannot instantly win victory, but you can arm for 
the conflict. You cannot perfect the scholarship, 
but you can enter the school. And any man is going 
on in sin who is not seeking to bring his life up to the 
standard of the Lord Jesus Christ. Go, and sin no 
more, means beginning to live justly and to love 
mercy. It means setting yourself to repair all the 
evil of the past, whatever it is, in so far as the power 
of repair lies within your hands. It means looking 
within to see what there is poisonous and bitter in 
the fountain out of which the stream flows, and seek- 
ing that the fountain may be purified, and that the 
life may be made whole and clean and true. . . . 

3 



Wishing to be good, desiring to be good, purposing 
to be good, choosing to be good — these are not 
goodness. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, 
Lord ; but he that doeth the will of my Father which 
is in heaven. The wish of a dream is very different 
from the will of a life. Nothing serves but patient, 
continuous, persistent willing. 

The way to secure such a character is to seek in- 
spiration from Him who is love. 

forgetting tfje |Jast 

January Fourth 

If you only could erase that past, even though you 
could not substitute for it a worthier record, but you 
cannot do that. 

If you only could bear yourself the evils of your 
own wrong-doing, and lift from others all the conse- 
quences of your own self-indulgence, but you cannot 
even do that. The past can never be changed. 

" The Moving Finger writes, and having writ, 
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit 
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, 
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it." 

That is true — profoundly, terribly true. It were 
better we realized it while still the page of life lies 
open, fair and clear, before us. . . . But God can 
bring good out of our evil; and He certainly does. 

The wrong we have done we cannot undo. It is 
worse than idle for us to waste the present time in 
vain regrets over the unalterable past. We are to 

4 



learn its lesson; then we should turn our thoughts 
resolutely toward the future. The past is God's; 
give it to Him. The present is ours; the future we 
can make our own. And this is what He bids us do. 
Forget those things which are behind; press forward 
toward the prize that lies in the future; this is the 
message of His Gospel. 

JBebout iforgetting 

January Fifth 

No man ought to carry the past as a prisoner 
carries the ball chained to his ankle. No man ought 
to allow the memory of the past to prevent his peace 
and joy in present fellowship with God. God de- 
clares that he buries our sins in the depths of the sea; 
it is not right nor wise for us to fish them up again and 
take a new inventory of them. He blots them out 
of the book of his remembrance; it is neither right 
nor wise for us to engrave them with pens of steel in 
the book of our remembrance. To do this is to dis- 
believe his word, distrust his forgiveness, refuse his 
comradeship. 

We ought to learn wisdom from our mistakes; 
we ought to acquire virtues from our sins. Why 
this act of folly which we lament? Spend no time 
in repining; but spend all the time that is neces- 
sary in order to learn its lesson. Was it due to 
vanity? or greed? or appetite? or self-conceit? or a 
weak and wayward will? Find out. Then be on 
guard against the same enemy to your honor when 

5 



he attacks you at a new point and under new circum- 
stances. We all make mistakes; we all commit 
transgressions. But we ought not to repeat the same 
mistakes — that is to blunder; we ought not to com- 
mit the same transgressions — that is doubly dis- 
honorable. 

Betoout ^forgetting 

January Sixth 

Because we believe in Jesus Christ, because we 
believe in the forgiveness of sins, because we believe 
that God is able to bring good out of evil, we are saved 
from remorse. 

To go to him with the burden of our past; to cast 
that past on him and leave him to take care of it; 
to trust him to undo our own undoing; and then to 
turn our faces to the future with a new aspiration of 
hope and a new resolution of high endeavor, is to 
be a believer in Christ. To go to him for our under- 
standing of what we have to do in the world, to get 
our commission from him, and to set ourselves reso- 
lutely to the fulfilling of that commission; to make it 
our settled purpose to do his work in his way, is to 
be a follower of Christ. To come into companionship 
with him; to live in his presence; to imbibe his spirit; 
to share his experiences; to go with him alike unto 
his Mount of Transfiguration and into his Garden 
of Gethsemane, this is to receive him as a Life-giver. 
And this makes every day and every duty, from the 
least to the greatest . . . " a bubbling joy." 



6 



©etoout Remembering 

January Seventh 

Forgetting and remembering are results of the 
same mental operation. We remember when we fix 
our attention upon a past incident; we forget when 
we turn our attention away from it. In this, as in 
all our experiences, we are to overcome evil with good ; 
we are to erase the pictures which dishearten, depress, 
and discourage us by substituting for them the pic- 
tures which hearten, encourage, and inspire; we are 
to forget our sorrows by remembering God's comfort; 
we are to forget our sins by remembering God's 
forgiveness. Our mind is more subject to our will 
than we are apt to think. The memory is a gallery 
whose walls are covered with many pictures; we can 
choose what pictures we will look at. This is what 
Paul means when he bids us bring " every thought 
into captivity to the obedience of Christ. " It is 
always easier to turn our eyes from one picture to 
another than to close our eyes altogether. The easiest 
way to forget what is best forgotten is to remember 
what is best worth remembering. The easiest way 
to forget our own follies and failures and sins is to 
remember God's goodnesses. 

Cfcristf'* 5Ptegence Unitoerfial 

January Eighth 

The Great Companion is not dead. He is not 
talking, nor pursuing, nor in a journey, nor sleeping 
and must be awakened. It is we who are talking, 

7 



and pursuing, and in a journey, and sleeping and 
must be awakened. If we will stop our talking and 
listen, we may hear him; if we will stop our pursuing 
after we know not what, we shall find him at our side; 
if we will return from our journey into the far country, 
he will come forth to meet us; if we will rouse our- 
selves at the voice of conscience which every now 
and then pierces to our consciousness and disturbs 
our slumbers, we shall find ourselves in his presence. 
For still as of old is it true: 

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: 

If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. 

If I take the wings of the morning, 

And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; 

Even there shall thy hand lead me, 

And thy right hana shall hold me. 

If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me; 

Even the night shall be light about me. 

Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; 

But the night shineth as the day: 

The darkness and the light are both alike to thee. 



®fje Stop of g>ett=g>acrtfke 

January Ninth 

What do we mean by self-sacrifice? What we 
ought to mean is the sacrifice of self. Self is forgot- 
ten, put aside, lost sight of, as Paul says, put to death; 
it is as if it were not. There is no joy like that of a 
service of love so absorbing that one ceases to be 
conscious of self. 

General Armstrong is assigned at the close of the 
Civil War to the care of a camp of contrabands at 
Fortress Monroe. He sees that the Government 
may go on furnishing the negroes with rations in- 

8 



definitely, and so raising up a community of paupers. 
He sees that not help but education in self-help is 
what they need; not food, but the offer of choice 
between work or hunger. He stops the rations 
and opens a school. He is execrated by the idle and 
the vicious for compelling them to go to work. He 
is criticised by sentimental philanthropists who think 
it hard to impose hardship on these idle and incom- 
petent freedmen. He is laughed at as a visionary by 
hard-headed, practical men who think they know the 
negro and think they know that nothing can ever 
be made of the negro. But to the realization of his 
ideal he gives his life, spending half his time in educat- 
ing in the principles of industry an outcast race and 
the other half in the North educating in the principles 
of brotherhood a careless Christian constituency. 
He gives himself unreservedly to this work, and dies 
before his time, having spent his life too speedily in his 
devotion to it. And after his death in his diary is 
found written the sentence, " I have never known 
what self-sacrifice means." Of course not. Self was 
dead; there was left no self to know. 

W$t Crotott of &tgf)teott£(ites& 

January Tenth 
To work for God is to work with God. To follow 
Christ is to live with Christ — to march in the same 
road, engage in the same campaign, share in the same 
experience. To enter God's service is more than to 
be his servant. It is to be his child. It is more than 
to do his will; it is to be in purpose and spirit one 

9 



with him. Religion is the life of God in the soul of 
man. To be religious, Christianly religious, is to 
have God as our Companion. Then, truly, our fellow- 
ship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 
Then our will is to do God's will; then we see the 
world as God sees it; then we do our little to help God 
achieve what he is achieving; then we are cheered 
and sustained by the unfailing hope of Him who 
sees the end from the beginning. God is himself 
our exceeding great reward. 

Inspire us to follow Thee; teach us what it is to 
follow Thee; give to us the life that will make us 
follow Thee, in very truth Thy disciples, in very 
truth Thy followers. 

#pporttmttp 

January Eleventh, 
God is ready to fill with his own life and thought 
the largest molds we can prepare for him. 

God, who creates opportunities, is always able to 
provide assistants. If you take the work that lies 
next to you, and there are needs in it which you can- 
not supply, some one will be found when the time 
comes who can supply them. Muller, without a 
cent of money, undertakes to provide for orphan 
children, and the Lord sends the money. Moses, 
without eloquence, accepts his commission to arouse 
a nation of slaves to a life of liberty, and God sends a 
man of eloquence to plead with and for him. If the 
nation could have foreseen the Civil War it would 

10 



hardly have selected Abraham Lincoln as its Presi- 
dent : it would have chosen a soldier or an experienced 
statesman. But the Providence which called Lincoln 
to the Presidency called about him men to do what he 
could not do. 

©pportunttp 

January Twelfth 

Americans are rarely lazy, but they are sometimes 
indolent. A lazy man does not like to do anything; 
an indolent man does not like to do anything he does 
not like to do. Indolence is sometimes self-indulgent 
activity. Happy the man who finds a peculiar joy 
in undertaking a difficult and disagreeable task, and 
in achieving it. I have a friend who says: " If you 
cannot do what you like, then like what you do." 
That is the secret of a truly successful life. One 
may be required throughout his life to do the easy 
things: let him do them with a contented spirit. 
But if Opportunity invites him to a service where 
success is difficult and failure not improbable, let 
him thank God who calls him to walk in a high place, 
and trust that God will enable him so to do. 

Have faith in yourself because you have faith in 
God ; take what work he gives you ; believe that you 
can succeed; be willing to fail if he wills to give you 
the discipline of failure. The balky horse is the most 
useless horse in the stable; a balky man is the most 
useless man in society. He gives up before he begins; 
because he has no faith in himself. Do not praise 
yourself; but do not belittle yourself. Just do the 

11 



work that comes to your hand; and let others judge 
of its fruitfulness. 

True kingship is through serving. The real kings 
of the earth are its servants. They rule, not by 
authority imposed from without, but by inspiration 
exerted within. They rule by influence, not by power. 
Power dies when the hand which exercised it lays 
down the scepter. Influence lives on; it is immortal. 

Slefjoiti, 3J Jllafee m TOntxg* Jleta 

January Thirteenth 
The great war has destroyed some of the old in- 
stitutions of an imperfect civilization and it has shaken 
others. 

But now the period of building has arrived. The 
opportunity is afforded us to reconstruct our political, 
our industrial, our educational, and our religious 
institutions more in conformity with the divine law, 
more in harmony with the divine spirit. This neces- 
sity is as imperative, if not as immediate, in the United 
States as in Europe. Opportunities involve obliga- 
tions. What we can do we ought to do. We are 
in the world in order to work with God in building the 
world aright; and in this work of rebuilding, religious 
reconstruction is more important than either political, 
industrial, or educational reconstruction. 

To those who believe that God is in his world, 
this declaration of the inspired prophet, " Behold, I 
make all things new," comes as a command, as a 
guide, and as an inspiration. 

12 



It is a command: God is not merely conserving: 
he is improving, developing, renovating, reconstruct- 
ing. This fact is in itself a command to his children 
to improve, develop, renovate, reconstruct. 

It is a guide : we are to understand the signs of the 
times and are to move toward the ideal of human 
brotherhood which God puts before us and along the 
pathway which his providence indicates to us. 

And it is an inspiration : there is nothing too great 
for us to undertake with God as our Comrade and our 
Leader. 

With Christ's teaching for our ideal and with 
Christ's comradeship as our strength, we need not 
fear to enter upon the undertaking which lies before 
us. 

Courage 

January Fourteenth 
Half the troubles in life come because men lack 
courage at the critical point; they believe thoroughly 
in doing right, but when they come to a place where 
the moral aspect is not the only aspect of a question, 
and where very grave results may follow action, they 
lack the courage to trust themselves entirely to 
principle, and endeavor to find a course which experi- 
ence and policy will justify. It is safe to say that 
whenever troubles come to a man who always does 
the right thing fearlessly at the right time, he is 
wholly spared those embarrassments and entangle- 
ments which beset the paths of those who try to 
follow principle with the aid of policy. Men hav T e 

13 



made footpaths through life in every direction, and 
he who attempts to follow them will find himself 
hourly and endlessly perplexed; God has struck a 
solid highway, more lasting than the old Roman 
roads, along which every man may travel, not with- 
out clouds and storms, but free from the danger of 
losing his path, and sure to reach the end of his 
journey in safety. 

There is no courage higher than the courage which 
takes responsibilities when the providence of God puts 
them on us, and takes them without flinching, and 
without seeking to throw the burden of them off, 
in whole or in part, on some one else. 

Pray that you may be strong to do your whole 
duty, not that you may be excused from it. . . . 
Cowardly flight from duty never leads to peace. 
Courageous fulfilment of duty never fails to find it. 

Heaberstfjip 

January Fifteenth 

For leadership . . . you must possess: sympathy 
with men; faith in men; a clear vision to perceive 
the divine laws of life, and a helpful faith in relying 
upon them; a living belief in their practicability, 
and a sound judgment in applying them to the 
problems of your own time; the courage of your con- 
victions — a courage born of your faith that God is 
behind his laws, making them effective . . . — a firm 
resolve to march with him in the direction in which 
he leads, and a persistent patience willing to take one 

14 



step at a time, so that it is a step in the right direc- 
tion, and to wait with assurance of hope for ultimate 
results of righteousness, while eagerly and bravely 
pressing forward, step by step, toward that kingdom 
of God which is righteousness, peace, and universal 
welfare, based on holiness of spirit. 

Christ put a new ambition, a new heart, a new 
purpose, a new hope into men. Men said: "We 
cannot;" he said: " You can." The very com- 
mand of Christ ought to be inspiration. 

ORbe ILilt tfjat fteallp 3to 

January Sixteenth 

A young man flings himself off the wharf and 
rescues a drowning man, does it again and again, 
and by and by the Life-Saving Service pins some 
emblem of honor on his breast. The value is not the 
thing which is pinned upon his breast. The value 
is the courage and the self-denial and the service which 
he has done. A boy goes into the army; enters as 
a sergeant, comes back with epaulettes on his shoul- 
ders. There is nothing in the epaulettes; there is 
everything in the courage, the heroism, the patience, 
the bravery that won the epaulettes. 

The men who believed in the life which is life in- 
deed, the men who took their stand on principles, the 
men who believed that God was behind a principle, 
the men who dared to suffer and to die for 
principle, they are the men who live forever, their 
life is immortal. 

15 



There is no greater heroism than that of the man 
or woman who enters life anew, determined to achieve 
a victory over himself and the world in spite of a life 
thus far wasted, and a manhood thus far weakened 
and impoverished. In such a campaign he is not 
alone; for God is with him. His purposes count with 
God for achievement; his faith is counted to him for 
righteousness. Society does not believe in him; 
friends do not believe in him; father does not believe 
in him; mother has lost hope for him; but even then, 
when father and mother forsake him, God takes him 
up. God pledges his sympathy and offers his help. 

Cheerfulness 

January Seventeenth 

A cheerful face is the outward and visible sign of 
an inward condition, and that condition may be 
secured by any one who is willing to pay the price of 
effort and steady purpose which the acquisition of 
any virtue exacts. It is as easy to cultivate cheer- 
fulness as to cultivate patience or good temper or 
courtesy. These qualities society demands of every 
man, and if nature has not bestowed them on him, 
society insists that he shall cultivate them. . . . 
Society ought to demand cheerfulness of all its 
members; the man who spreads depression and breeds 
discouragement ought to be ostracized, because he 
strikes at the very heart of the social life. Depres- 
sion and despair are preeminently unsocial vices; 
and in so far as they are diffused, they sap social 
courage and drain the fountains of social happiness. 

16 



If there were to be a new beatitude, it might well 
read, " Blessed are the cheerful; " for to them is 
given the gift of diffusing hope and courage and joy. 
It is not too much to say that they are not only light 
but life bringers; for courage and joy prolong life, 
as discouragement and despair shorten it. 

Cheerfulness and despondency are alike contagious. 
A discouraged leader can chill the bravest army ever 
put in the field; a serene, buoyant leader can put 
resolution into cowards. The roots of cheerfulness 
are in faith; the hope which shines on the faces of 
some men and women is the reflection of the light 
which shines in the face of God. 

Snijerent <©Qobrtes# 

January Eighteenth 

I believe that every faculty in man is inherently 
good. His appetites, his passions, his acquisitive- 
ness, his approbativeness, his self-esteem, are all 
necessary parts of a well-ordered human character. 
The evil lies in their maladjustment, and in the fact 
that they are not working harmoniously under the 
law of love. On the other hand, there is no faculty, 
however high and noble, which may not become evil 
if it is not rightly adjusted to the other faculties. 
The worst cruelties in history have been perpetrated 
by conscience, the worst superstitions by reverence. 
Love itself, unless reinforced and guided by con- 
science, may become a weakness. Many a mother 
has ruined her child by an unconscientious and un- 
regulated love. 

17 



Patience, experience, hope, love, are all developed 
in the school of struggle. Necessity is the mother 
of more than invention; it is the mother of many of 
the virtues — perhaps it would be safe to say, of 
most of the virtues. 

Soj> te in g>erbice 

January Nineteenth 

We want pleasures of the body, food, raiment, 
luxury, and our struggle with one another is to see 
who shall get the larger houses and the finer raiment 
and the more splendid equipment. We want pleas- 
ures of the body and we want happiness of the heart ; 
we want wife and children and earthly affections; 
we appreciate these; but the joy which comes from 
holiness of the spirit, how covetous are we of that? 
Do you remember how, in almost his last hour, just 
as he was facing the cross, Christ turned to his dis- 
ciples and said, "My joy I give to you"? That is 
joy of the spirit. The joy of the soldier who bares 
his bosom to the bullet. The joy of the nurse who 
gives herself with patient endurance to the service of 
the hospital. The joy of the physician who carries 
on his shoulders the burdens of a hundred families 
bowed by sickness; the joy of suffering for others. 
The joy of the mother — greatest joy that ever the 
world knows — sweetest song of joy that is ever sung 
from out this weeping world. And yet is this the 
joy that we are most covetous of, most eager to get? 
that you are most covetous of, that you are most 
eager to have? Come, all things are ready. If 

18 



you want the kingdom of God buckle on your armor 
and fight for it. If you want the kingdom of heaven 
that means peace, and joy and holiness of spirit, 
go where you can carry the pacific spirit and self- 
sacrificing love. 

gbabeb bv ©ope 

January Twentieth 

I have something better to do in the world than to 
be happy; I have something better to do in the world 
than to be comfortable; here are enemies worth 
the fighting; I want to battle them; that is the 
wish. Here at my side is a Strength-Giver who will 
enable me to master them; that is the expectation. 
I will fight on till sin is killed, for I have Eternity 
before me and God behind me; that is the hope. 
Not to say, I think I am well, therefore I am well; 
not to say, I believe I am righteous, therefore I am 
righteous; but to say, I have a new wish; it is the 
wish to bring purity where there is corruption and 
honor where there is shame and self-control where 
there is sensuality, to make cities that are pure and 
churches that are brave and a nation that is honorable 
and men everywhere who are white-winged and lus- 
trous of brow, and God helping me it can be done. 
Oh, if we really did but have the wish and behind it 
the expectation it would be true. To him that be- 
lie veth all things are possible. 

Forgive our narrowness, enlarge our faith, and 
help us that know Thee a little by our trust in Thy 
love to minister that love to those who know Thee not 

19 



at all. And grant, O most merciful Father, so to fill 
us with Thine own mercy that we shall never be 
daunted or discouraged by any obstacle, that we shall 
never pause nor halt until Thy work is accomplished 
in us, for us, through us. And to Thy name shall 
be the glory. Amen. 

January Twenty-first 

Oh, what man is there who is a man, or what 
woman, who would stand in a world of suffering and 
see tears flowing from others' eyes, and say: Let my 
eyes be dry; who would walk in a procession where 
other men are carrying heavy burdens and say: Let 
me stand erect, unburdened; who want to live where 
others are in pain and go unanguished from the 
cradle to the grave! Hope is the desire to suffer and 
the expectation that by that suffering something will 
be done for the kingdom of God and the well-being 
of men. It is covetousness for Christ. This hope, 
this expectation, this desire, kindled by God, is 
sustained and supported by faith in Him. From a 
nursery one brings a little switch a few inches long. 
What is that? An oak. That an oak? Well, yes, 
it is the beginning of an oak, but leave it lying there 
on the table and presently it would dry and be good 
only for the fire; but plant it in the ground and it 
will grow to the stature of an oak. Take this man up 
and root him in God and no man can tell to what he 
will grow. That is the message. " I cannot? " 
You and God can; there is nothing that you and 

20 



God cannot do together. When He enters your life, 
points out to you your duty, calls you to your mis- 
sion, lays on you your burden, crowns you with 
suffering, He stands at your side and says to you, 
Together you and I can. " I can do all things through 
Him that strengtheneth me." 

God of hope, fill us with Thine own spirit of hope- 
fulness, that we, not knowing Thy resources, may trust 
in Thee and in them, desire for ourselves what Thou 
dost desire for us, and be sure for ourselves, as Thou 
art sure for us, that if we fight with Thee we shall be 
conquerors and more than conquerors, through Him 
that loved us. Amen. 

BGLeligfon 

January Twenty-second 

I heard the other day two butterflies, on the edge 
of a flower, discussing. One said, " We cannot know 
there is any honey in the flower; no butterfly ever 
found it there, no butterfly ever will." The other 
said, " Well, nevertheless, I think there must be 
some." And while they debated it, gnostic and 
agnostic, a humming-bird flew in and ran his long 
bill into the flower, and sipped the sweet, and was 
gone. To debate whether there is beauty and truth 
in this Word of God, whether there is beauty and 
truth in the world, whether there is beauty and truth 
in the Christ that came from God — this is not relig- 
ion. " Oh! taste and see that the Lord is good " — 
that is religion. 

21 



We are not to be religious by coming out of the 
world, but by living aright in the world. 

There is not one of us who cannot bring something 
of this life to our fellowmen; no matter how arid 
your life is, no matter how dull it is, no matter how 
poor it is, it is possible for you to be the giver of life 
to your neighbor. 

January Twenty4hird 

No man can trust to another man to get religion 
for him. No priest or minister can supply your lack. 
No mother by her prayers can make up for your 
prayerlessness. No wife by her purity can furnish 
an equivalent for your worldliness. A business man 
goes from his home, works all day in his store, and 
comes home at night thinking nothing of his meals 
until he sits down to that which has been prepared 
for him by another's thoughtfulness. You cannot 
thus go through life, living in the world and unto the 
world, and trust at last to sit down at the marriage 
supper and partake because another has provided 
for you. 

Religion is partnership with God. The most 
irreligious work in the world is the religious work that 
has not God in it; and there is no truer religious work 
than the work of the statesman or the merchant 
or the lawyer, if he is working for God, and God is 
working with him. There is no such profanation 
as a pulpit that has not God in it, and there is no 

22 



more sacred ground in all the world than the lawyer's 
office if God is in it. Every bush has God in it. 
When our eyes are opened we see that it is all aflame ; 
and then we take our shoes from off our feet and know 
that we are on holy ground ; and it is only because we 
were before dull of vision that we did not see. 

fteligion 

January Twenty-fourth 

There is no escape from calamity, disease, and 
death; they are a part of the inevitable order of 
human life, and sooner or later on every head the 
tempest breaks. Thank God for the peace above the 
floods, for the safety beyond the storms, for the silence 
behind the uproar of the winds, for the calm seas at 
the heart of the typhoon. No human hand can stay 
the march of the elements, but the stricken can lay 
hold upon the Arm that moves the winds and clouds; 
no breakwater of man's building can keep back the 
rushing tides of sorrow, but the wrecked can look up 
into the face of One who walked upon the sea, and 
through clouds and darkness have vision of Him who 
bore the sorrows of the world that he might make his 
children feel the infinite love behind the mystery of 
suffering. That mystery God cannot explain to us, 
because the mighty range of his purpose sweeps be- 
yond the low horizons of our thought; but he put 
himself under the hard conditions of our mortal life, 
he has touched our sick ones, he has wept over our 
griefs, he has called back our dead that he might 
make us understand that our sorrows are his sorrows, 

23 



and that in the blackness of our affliction his love and 
power are preparing the dawn of an eternal joy. 

ftoiines;* unto tije Uorb 

January Twenty-fifth 

The common distinction between the secular and 
the religious has no real existence in the Christian 
faith. The Christian religion is the consecration of 
all one's activities to the service of God by the service 
of his children. Wherever God is is holy ground. 
The market-place is as religious as the church, the 
merchant as the minister, the supper-table as the 
altar. If we understood the meaning of the Bible, 
we who believe in it would be as eager to write 
" Holiness unto the Lord " upon the bells of our horses 
as upon the bells of our churches. . . . 

If one reads without preconceptions the story of 
Christ's life he will find that life full of what we 
ordinarily call secular activities. He heals the sick, 
he comforts the sorrowing, he feeds the hungry, as 
well as rebukes the sinful, forgives the repentant, and 
inspires with hope the discouraged and the despairing. 
On one occasion his friends had been fishing all 
night and caught nothing. In the early dawn they 
see a figure standing upon the shore and a little fire 
started there. It is their Master. And when they 
come on shore they find that he has prepared a break- 
fast for them; and not until they have eaten their 
breakfast does he give them any spiritual message. 
On another occasion they are sitting down to the 
supper-table with unwashed feet because no one of 

24 



them is willing to do the servile office for others, and 
he girds himself with a towel and washes their feet, 
that their meal may be taken decently and in order. 
I wonder how, after reading those incidents, any 
disciple of Christ can think that any service rendered 
to another is a menial service. 



JHJjat fe a Christian? 

January Twenty-sixth 
What is necessary is to believe that what Jesus 
Christ has come to do in the world is worth doing; 
to believe that the spirit in which he has undertaken 
that work is worth having; and, receiving that spirit 
from him, to give ourselves to the work to which he 
calls us. It is so to carry on our business that our 
industrial work will be glad tidings to the poor; so to 
carry on our social life that our hopefulness will be 
comfort to the broken-hearted; so to carry on our 
charitable work as to furnish help to those less for- 
tunate than ourselves — the blind, the deaf, the sick, 
the ignorant; so to carry on our political work as to 
make for liberty and justice. 

This is what Jesus Christ came to do. This is 
what in his too short life he did. He went about 
doing good. We have been so busy discussing his 
relation to the Infinite, the nature of his power, the 
question whether he performed the miracles at- 
tributed to him, that we have too often forgotten 
to consider the spirit by which he was actuated. 
Whatever his powers were, they were used in help- 

25 



ful service. If men were hungry, he fed them; if 
they were sick, he healed them; if they were ignorant, 
he taught them; if they were in despair, he gave them 
hope; if they were burdened by the sense of sin and 
the fear of penalty, he told them that their sins were 
forgiven them, and bade them go in peace and sin 
no more. 



®i)p Sfngbom Come on Carti) 

January Twenty-seventh 
The church has been too apt to think that Christ 
came to prepare men on the earth for a celestial 
happiness in heaven; it has been too apt to preach a 
religion that prepared men to die rather than a relig- 
ion which fitted them to live; it has too often ac- 
cepted dismal conditions in this life as inevitable, and 
tried to content men with their present lot by promis- 
ing them a better lot hereafter. So did not Christ. 
So did not his immediate disciples. He told them 
to pray, " Thy kingdom come on earth; " and his 
disciples looked for a time when the kingdoms of this 
world would become the kingdom of our Lord and of 
his Christ. 

What Christ proposes to his followers is that they 
combine in undertaking to establish on the earth a 
new social order by imbuing society with a new spirit 
— a spirit of righteousness or square dealing, which 
will lead every man to treat his neighbor as he would 
wish to be treated; a spirit of peace or good will, 
which will substitute cooperation for competition, 

26 



brotherhood for mutual hostility, the motto, In 
honor preferring one another, for the motto, Every- 
man for himself; and a spirit of joy in that holiness or 
healthfulness of life which comes from fellowship with 
the All-Father. 



CJjrtet tottf) SM* Jfrtenb* 

January Twenty-eighth 

The record which we possess of the Master's 
parting words to his disciples was probably written 
down by disciples of John, as his amanuenses, more 
than half a century after the event. To the literalist 
this will seem a great misfortune. To me these 
incomparable words are not less sacred because they 
represent the imperishable memory of the one dis- 
ciple whose courageous devotion to his Master kept 
him at the cross until his Master's death — the dis- 
ciple whom Jesus in that hour adopted as his son 
and to whom he intrusted the future care of his own 
widowed and heart-pierced mother. 

It was characteristic of Jesus that he made this 
hour of gloom the most luminous hour of his life's 
teaching, that he did not seek comfort from his 
disciples but gave comfort to them, and strengthened 
the courage of his own faith by imparting courage to 
their perplexed and troubled hearts. For the spirit 
always grows by imparting : we add to our courage by 
encouraging the timid, inspire our hopes by minister- 
ing to the disheartened, and make clearer our vision 
by telling others what we have seen. 

Faith in Abraham Lincoln has inspired the Ameri- 
27 



can people and made them what they would not have 
been but for Abraham Lincoln. Faith in Jesus Christ 
has made the world what it never could have been 
without Jesus Christ. This is the beginning of Chris- 
tian faith: it inspires in us the desire to encounter 
our dangers with his courage, to bear our burdens 
with his patience, to meet our temptations with his 
unyielding resolve, and to bear the consequences of 
others* sins with his suffering love. 



Cfjtlbren of <©ot* 

January Twenty-ninth 

Whatever life you are living, whoever you are, 
whatever you know or do not know, whatever work 
you have done or are not doing, whatever sins you 
have committed or are committing now, you are the 
children of God. You may turn away from your 
Father and abandon Him and refuse His authority, 
but still you are the children of God. You can break 
the moral relationship, but you cannot break the 
other — that is indissoluble, unalterable. You are 
the children of God. Come! Come! court no longer 
the darkness when the sunlight beckons you; stay 
no longer in the nest when the bright air without 
calls you; be content no longer unfledged in the nest 
when you might spread your wings and fly away. 
Come! Come! you are God's children. Come to 
your home; come to your father. 



28 



<©ofc tje architect of tfjt* Morlti 

January Thirtieth 

Beside my home they are building an apartment- 
house; there are piles of brick, and of stone, and of 
sand, and gatherings of cement and great timbers; 
the street is full of dust and noise and confusion; but 
the architect who has gathered them there knows 
what he is going to make out of them; he knows where 
the bricks are going, and where the stone, and where 
the sand and the cement; and when the work is done 
according to the architect's foreknowledge and pre- 
destination, we shall have a very different aspect in our 
street. So I look out on life full of confusion, but 
in the faith that there is an architect at work who 
knows what he is about, though I do not. What it 
will be I do not know; but I know this — that some- 
where in that structure I shall be a grain of sand; 
and that is enough. I will help in some way to hold 
together that great temple of God in which God will 
dwell; for he that filled the body of Christ while Christ 
walked on the earth will yet fill the Church, which is 
the kingdom of Christ, with his own spirit. 

Take me, then, O God, for I am but humble clay; 
take me and knead me and mold me and shape me and 
pattern me — aye, and put me in the furnace and burn 
me, so that I may come out in thy image and fulfil 
the sovereignty of thy love. 



29 



January Thirty-first 

Know ye not that your body is a temple of a holy spirit which 
is in you, which ye have from God? 

The body is a temple; in the temple dwells a spirit; 
this spirit came forth from God, is in the image of 
God, partakes the nature of God. " We are his 
offspring." How to keep the temple holy, that is, 
clean and healthy; how to keep this spirit that dwells 
within the temple a worthy occupant and the spiritual 
master of the body, is the problem of life. To answer 
those two questions would be to answer all the ques- 
tions of religion; would be to solve all the problems 
of life: the problem of the mother with her child, 
of the teacher with her pupil, of the citizen with the 
State, of the man of affairs in his affairs, of the in- 
dividual with himself. Life is making men and 
women. To know how so to live as to help, not hin- 
der life, to make the result of its businesses, its con- 
flicts, its temptations, a pure soul in a pure body, is 
to possess all knowledge and to achieve all success 
that is of worth, for all knowledge is to be measured 
by its contribution to life, and the end of all achieve- 
ment is character. 

February First 

The body is more than the habitation of man : it is 
his organ; the instrument by which he must do all 
his work in this life. . . . The body is more than 
either a habitation or an instrument of man. It 

30 



is the temple of God. It is his dwelling-place. He 
whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain dwells 
in his children. Shame on us if we invite him to a 
house which he has wonderfully equipped, but which 
our wilfulness, our ignorance, or our neglect has 
suffered to fall into decay. Into what poor, unkempt, 
uncared-for temples we sometimes invite him! 

A clear eye, a clean skin, a firm step, a sweet smile, 
a ringing laugh, a blushing cheek, all speak of a pure, 
good, true soul within. 

There are times when one must sacrifice his body 
in order to serve a higher end, as does the soldier in 
battle or the physician in a pestilence ; but the general 
law of health is this : God has put the limits of your 
activity upon you by the machine which he has given 
you to use in that activity. You have no more right 
to overdrive it in your ambition until it breaks down, 
than you would to overwork your servant or over- 
drive your horse. And to use a stimulant of any kind 
as a lash with which to overdrive it is always both a 
folly and a sin. 

Let your moderation be known unto all men. 

Stye J?ob|> 

February Second 

God has so connected body and spirit, house and 
tenant, the temple and its divine inhabitant, that if 
the spirit corrupts the body, the body in turn cor- 
rupts the spirit; the tenant in destroying the house 
destroys himself. 

31 



Health of body is not merely muscular strength. 
An athlete is not the perfect model. That is a truly 
healthy body which in all its parts is promptly, cor- 
dially, unquestioningly obedient to a noble tenant 
which dwells within. The bodily organs are like the 
instruments in an orchestra, the spirit like the con- 
ductor; when each instrument plays as the conductor 
directs, life is harmonious. A healthy body is an 
obedient body; the eye sees what the spirit bids it 
see; the ear hears what the spirit bids it hear; the 
hand does what the spirit bids it do. But a healthy 
man is more than a healthy body. He is a healthy 
body obedient to a healthy spirit — that is, to a spirit 
obedient to the laws of God, which are the laws of 
health. If the body has an errant, lawless, or vicious 
master, it obeys to its own undoing and the undoing 
of its master. The laws of health are the laws of 
God. Obedience to the laws of health is obedience 
to God. Disobedience to the laws of health is dis- 
obedience to God. 

February Third 

The eye receives impressions; the hand performs 
actions. Christ tells his disciples that to receive an 
evil impression may be as sinful and as dangerous as 
to perform an evil action. 

This is not generally believed. We are accus- 
tomed to think of sin as doing something sinful; to 
regard sin and wrongdoing as nearly synonymous 
expressions. To sin passively appears almost a con- 

32 



tradiction in terms. Not so to Christ. We may sin 
in receiving impressions no less than in doing deeds. 
Sin is lawlessness. And law applies to the eye as well 
as to the hand; to the organs which receive as well 
as to the organs which act. To look on a neighbor's 
watch and desire to transfer it to one's own pocket 
is to be a thief; to look on a woman to lust after her 
is to be an adulterer; to look on an enemy with de- 
sire to take vengeance on him is to be a murderer. 
To desire evil is to be evil; and the evil eye inspires 
the evil desire. 

February Fourth 

It is physiologically true that environment tends 
to determine character. The child brought up among 
vulgar associates necessarily becomes vulgar; brought 
up among impure associates necessarily becomes im- 
pure. Necessarily — unless vigorous and efficient 
measures are taken to counteract the environment; 
that is, unless an efficient counteracting environment 
can be produced. Unless, for example, the father 
and mother can erase the vicious impression by sub- 
stituting in its place a virtuous one, or can arouse the 
will of the child to abhor the vicious picture and so 
prevent the picture from exerting a vicious influence 
on the will. And even then in later life the picture 
will return at times to plague him. 

It is for this reason that modern reformers are 
putting great stress on a change of environment, are 
demanding for the poor the external symbols of in- 

33 



ternal cleanliness. Clean streets, pure water, bright 
sunlight, are not only physically hygienic, they tend 
to moral hygiene as well. ... It is for this reason we 
are putting fine pictures on the walls of our school- 
rooms. They are not mere ornaments; they do not 
merely promote a good artistic sense in the pupils. 
They give through the eye impressions of " sweetness 
and light," and so help to make the pupil pure, by cre- 
ating in him a habit of pure taste and pure imagination. 
They are literally helping to determine the convolu- 
tions of his brain. 

tEfje Car 

February Fifth 

It is well to seek literature that requires hard 
thinking — the literature of elevated thoughts. There 
are times, no doubt, when the tired brain wants rest, 
when a story which is a " stop-thought " is welcome; 
times when the overworked spirit longs for sleep, and 
seeks what Thackeray calls a " night-cap." But to 
live with light and easy literature as our constant 
companion is to incite a habit of feeble-mindedness. 

If the story . . . entertains and at the same time 
degrades instead of inspires, if it makes vice attractive 
and virtue repulsive, if its ideals are not only false 
but vicious, it is a powerful instrument of vice. 

It is often said that we are a reading people. That 
proves nothing. Are we a thinking people? It is 
sometimes said by a fond mother of her boy that he 
is a great reader. That is nothing. Is he a great 

34 



thinker? Reading is a help to thought. The read- 
ing that is not a help to thought is time wasted. The 
boy who is reading and not thinking would much 
better be out at play with his fellows. 

I have no sympathy with the Puritan hostility to 
fiction. But the schoolgirl who makes her luncheon 
off chocolate caramels is poorly nourished physically. 
And if she makes novels her staple mental diet, she is 
poorly nourished intellectually. Moreover, there are 
adulterated novels as there are adulterated candies. 
There is enough classical fiction in the world well 
worth reading and rereading to make resort to trash 
unnecessary for recreation. I may add that the wise 
mother will not attempt to stop her children from 
reading fiction. She may limit it; if she is wise she 
will certainly guide it. 

STcrornaltem 

February Sixth 

Can you not see the tendency of this vile journal- 
ism? I do not say we shall reach the result (God 
grant that we do not!), but cannot you see what it 
means? First, we have yellow-covered stories that 
tell all awful horrors. When there has been educated 
a constituency by that literature and the boys and 
girls have grown to men and women there grows up a 
press that elaborates with great exaggeration all 
suicides, murders, and horrible crimes. Now we are 
feeding on those. Do you know what comes next? 
When Rome was no longer satisfied with mimic shows 

35 



of horror, she made real ones. When she was no 
longer sufficiently satisfied with the tragic stories, 
she made actual tragedies, flung over men to wild 
beasts in spectacular shows that she might rejoice in 
their agonies. That is the way in which we are 
walking. You cannot feed children on yellow-covered 
stories without raising men and women that want 
yellow newspapers; and you cannot feed men and 
women on yellow newspapers without kindling a 
passion that will want tragedy in actual life, and will 
make it when it does not come itself. 

Sfournaltem 

February Seventh 

We only need a public sentiment which will pro- 
tect from the crimes of the pen as it now protects 
from the crimes of the poniard ; which will hold every 
man who incites a mob to violence as an accessory, 
and every man who robs his fellowman of a deserved 
reputation as a criminal to be classed with the pick- 
pocket. 

A newspaper has no more right to despoil one of his 
reputation than a thief has a right to despoil one of 
his property. The robber of reputation is the more 
despicable criminal of the two. Freedom of the press 
means that the newspaper may print what it will 
without submitting beforehand its matter to a govern- 
mental censor. It does not mean that it may print 
what it will without being responsible afterwards for 
its falsehoods if it prints what is not true. . . . 

36 



Take heed what ye read would be a good danger- 
signal to print in large type across the front page of 
every daily paper. 

So long as the press counts itself simply a mercantile 
venture, so long as it is conducted on the principle of 
giving men what they want, so long as it abandons its 
high vocation to be a leader of men and a creator of 
life and panders to the passions of evil men, so long 
as it shows enterprise without discrimination and 
gathers in its grouping all manner of news, good and 
bad, noble and worldly, and throws it out in one 
great waste-basket before you every morning in the 
week, so long as it is doing this work — what shall we 
do? . . . We are to discriminate, take the clean paper, 
leave the unclean paper alone. 

GHfje Congue 

February Eighth 

Words are at once most transient and most perma- 
nent. They are vehicles of life. The vehicle perishes, 
the life remains. We forget the word; we retain 
the influence which it has communicated. A word 
is but a wavelet of the air set in motion by the lips 
of one and impinging on the ear-drum of another. 
And yet a word is also a revelation of one soul to 
another soul. Courage and fear, hope and despair, 
honor and shame, purity and foulness, reverence and 
profanity, are carried by these " winged words." 
Nothing is so evanescent, nothing so enduring. . . . 

It is not only Jesus who can say, Heaven and earth 

37 



shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away; 
every teacher of truth, every inspirer of life, may 
say it. . . . Jesus Christ was a great teacher, not 
because he delivered great orations, but because his 
words were the vehicle for a great life. 



February Ninth 

The tongue has changed the destiny of innumerable 
immortal souls. The drunken bookbinder is stag- 
gering along the streets of Worcester, hopeless, home- 
less, on the very verge of self-destruction. A kind 
hand is laid on his shoulder, a kind voice calls him by 
name and asks, " Why not sign the pledge, Mr. 
Gough? " " Words, mere words; " but they change 
the current of a life, and the drunken bookbinder 
becomes the apostle of temperance, and by his own 
" words, mere words," turns the current of the lives 
of innumerable thousands from death and destruc- 
tion to life, and hope, and peace, and God. The 
tongue has put courage into faltering hearts; has 
been a reinforcement to a timid army; has changed 
rout into victory. General Sheridan galloping down 
the Valley of the Shenandoah, and meeting his 
routed soldiers fleeing from the enemy, waves his 
sword in air and shouts, " Go the other way, boys! 
go the other way! " and they go the other way, and 
the defeat is made a victory by the power of the 
tongue, with a hero using it and enforcing it by his 
own example. 

38 



tEije Jf eet 

February Tenth 

If the time comes when it seems no longer worth 
while to bear the burden, or do the duty, or enter 
into the pleasures of the past — keep steadfastly on. 
If the pleasure no longer pleases, you may leave it. 
If the conventions of society require some abstinence 
from life as a token of respect to the dead, the respect 
may be paid. But lay aside no burden, discontinue 
no duty, abstain from no accustomed service for others. 
Comfort will be found, and only found, in keeping 
steadily, courageously, resolutely on with life. The 
way to light lies through the shadow ; the way to life 
through death. Light and life will not come to you; 
by pressing forward you will come to them. When 
in your perplexity you are tempted, meet the tempta- 
tion as Christian met it: " He began to muse what he 
had best to do. Sometimes he had half a thought to 
go back; then again he thought he might be halfway 
through the valley; he remembered also how he had 
already vanquished many a danger and that the 
danger of going back might be much more than to go 
forward; so he resolved to go on. Yet the fiends 
seemed to come nearer and nearer; but when they 
were come almost at him, he cried out with a most 
vehement voice, ' I will walk in the strength of the 
Lord God! ' so they gave back and came no further. " 



39 



®l)e gppettteg 

February Eleventh 

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do 
all to the glory of God. 

How can we eat and drink to the glory of God? 

Paul tells us that our body is a temple in which 
dwells a spirit which we have from God. This temple 
is in need of constant repair. We eat and drink to 
the glory of God when we so eat and drink as to keep 
it in good repair. Every act, physical or mental, 
destroys some tissue of the body. New tissue must 
be imported to take its place. This is one function 
of food and drink. The life of the body depends upon 
keeping up a certain standard of heat within. Food 
is fuel. This is another function of food and drink. 
When food and drink are so used as to make the body 
the best possible tenement for the spirit to inhabit 
and the best possible instrument for the spirit to use, 
we eat and drink to the glory of God. The appetites 
are not a sin. It is not sinful to enjoy a good meal. 
What is sinful is to allow our enjoyment to induce us 
to partake of a bad meal — that is, a meal that does 
not repair but impairs the body. 

&t'sl)t jftafeea iffltg&t 

February Twelfth 
Lincoln's birthday 

On February 27 [1860], Abraham Lincoln made his 
famous Cooper Union speech. ... I succeeded in 
getting a ticket and hearing the address. . . . My 
recollection of the scene is little more than a memory 

40 



of a memory: the long hall with the platform at the 
end, not at the side, as now; the great, expectant, but 
not enthusiastic crowd; the tall, ungainly figure, the 
melancholy face, the clear carrying voice, the few, 
awkward gestures. Reading over that speech now, I 
can discern in it elements of power w r hich I was in no 
critical mood to discern then: its Anglo-Saxon words, 
its simple sentence structure, its intellectual and moral 
unity, its steady and irresistible progress from premise 
to conclusion. But even then it seemed to me the 
most compelling utterance I had ever heard. . . . 
The spirit of Abraham Lincoln's address was embodied 
in its closing sentence: " Let us have faith that right 
makes might, and in that faith let us dare to the end 
to do our duty as we understand it." 

Our free institutions are threatened by two foes: 
plutocracy and mobocracy, lawless wealth and lawless 
passion. These are the two serpents that have always 
come up out of the sea to strangle liberty. They 
destroyed Greece; they destroyed Rome; will they 
destroy America? America as a self-governing com- 
munity is as yet only in its experimental stage. We 
can hand it down to our posterity purified and strength- 
ened, only by being true to the oath which Abraham 
Lincoln. . . proposed to the young men of Spring- 
field, Illinois: "Let every American, every lover of 
liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by 
the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the 
least particular the laws of the country, and never to 
tolerate their violation by others." We must recognize 
the divine nature of law and its sacred sanctions. 

41 



®be imagination 

February Thirteenth 

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth 
itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity 
every thought to the obedience of Christ. 

There is a disease known as locomotor ataxia. 
The limbs refuse to obey the will, and the arms and 
legs move, so to speak, according to their own un- 
controlled fancy. There is a locomotor ataxia of the 
mind. He who is afflicted with this disease — some- 
times called wandering thoughts — cannot control 
his thinking. His mental processes act, or seem to 
act, independently of his will. The lack of mental 
self-control, when carried to an extreme, becomes a 
form of insanity. The possession of mental self- 
control in its highest degree amounts to genius. 

The first end of education is, or ought to be, to 
train the mind to habits of lawful thinking — that is, 
to thinking in obedience to laws recognized by the 
mind and enforced by the will. 

To many persons the imagination appears to be, 
by its very nature, a lawless faculty; like a bird 
intended to flit hither and thither as it fancies, not 
to be directed or controlled in its flight. To many, 
an obedient imagination would seem like a contra- 
diction in terms. . . . The imagination is like the 
tendrils of a vine : trained on a trellis, it lifts the vine 
up into the air and the sunlight ; allowed to grovel on 
the ground, it fastens the vine to the earth, where 
worms crawl, bugs devour, and feet trample upon it. 

42 



iJHebttatmg on <©ofc in tfte i£igf)t ©Hatches 

February Fourteenth 

Insomnia has lost its dread since I learned the 
meaning of the Psalmist's declaration: " My mouth 
shall praise thee with joyful lips when I remember 
thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night 
watches.' ' The man who spends his sleepless hours 
in such remembrance makes them joyful hours. He 
does not He tossing to and fro, wondering whether he 
shall ever fall asleep again, anxious lest he shall prove 
unfitted for the morrow's duties, trying to put himself 
to sleep by endless combinations of numbers or by 
repeating senseless rhymes : he lies restf ully and reads 
in the book of his remembrance the record of his 
Father's love, or looks calmly at the morrow's duties 
or the morrow's perils because he looks at them as 
through his Father's eyes, or communes with his own 
heart and in its uninterpretable experiences hears the 
voice of his Father, or simply is still and knows that 
God is God; and he finally falls to sleep as a child in 
his Father's arms, and wakes in the morning more 
refreshed by his hour of sleeplessness than by all that 
the hours of sleep have brought to him. 

®f)e Conscience 

February Fifteenth 

It is not enough to follow one's conscience; it is 
also necessary to educate it. 

Blessed is the child who finds the hero in his own 
father or mother. He first idealizes, then reveres, 

43 



then imitates his hero, measures himself by the object 
of his hero-worship, brings his conscience up to the 
standard of a life higher than his own. 

He who would make and keep his conscience a light 
to guide his conduct and a force to form his character 
must apply it to his own life, not to the lif e of his 
neighbor. He must act on the aphorism, " Con- 
science for yourself, not for another." He who 
habitually employs his conscience as a measuring rod 
upon others in time loses the power to employ it as 
a measuring rod upon himself. Instead of taking a 
nobler life than his own by which to test his own con- 
duct, he uses his own life by which to test the lives of 
others. The twin evil spirits uncharitableness and 
self-conceit take possession of him, and equally unfit 
him to judge others or himself. 

Whz Conscience 

February Sixteenth 
Conscience should be a prophet rather than a 
historian. It should stand in the bow of the vessel 
to pilot it, not in the stern to cast the log. There are 
a great many persons to whom conscience is only a 
police officer: it hales them before the court after 
the deed is done, and submits them to inquisition to 
determine whether the doing was right or wrong. 
The time to interrogate conscience is in the morning 
before the day begins. It is well to forecast the day; 
to consider beforehand the questions that are likely 
to arise, to demand of conscience its judgments on 
those questions, and so to be prepared to meet them 

44 



with some measure of provision. This is better than 
to wait till the day is over and then pass its events in 
review and call on conscience to pass judgments on 
what can no longer be changed. That also may be 
sometimes wise, but chiefly as a preparation for 
similar events that are likely to recur in ensuing days. 
Conscience is intended to be our guide rather than our 
judge; and a judge only that it may be a better guide. 

Qtfje Conscience 

February Seventeenth 

Most important of all the conditions for keeping 
conscience sensitive and luminous is prompt obedience 
to its directions. The most common method of 
making the light that is in us darkness is a refusal to 
follow the light we have. The process is this: We 
adopt a course of conduct. Conscience protests. 
We disregard the protest. Thus we are at odds with 
ourselves. But to be at odds with ourselves becomes 
intolerable. We have refused to reconcile our con- 
duct with our conscience. Presently we begin to 
reconcile our conscience with our conduct. First 
we say, Everybody does it. Then, We must do it. 
Then, It cannot be very wrong to do what everybody 
does and what we must do. Conscience is corrupted. 
It was accuser; it becomes first apologist, then de- 
fender. The process of corruption is complete. The 
light that was in us has become darkness. 

Education of conscience by a nobler standard. 

Employment of conscience in self -judgment, not 
in judgment of others. 

45 



Prevision of conscience as a preparation for the 
future, rather than revision by conscience in judg- 
ment of the past. 

Prompt and loyal obedience to conscience. 

These are the four methods — perhaps, rather, I 
should say four of the methods — for keeping con- 
science a receiver and a giver of light to the life. 

Character 

February Eighteenth 

Out of the experience of your own folly, your own 
failure, and your own sin, with all that past behind 
you, you must move forward to your future. You 
can. Paul never could have written the Epistle to 
the Galatians if he had not been a proud, haughty, 
persecuting Pharisee. Saint Augustine never could 
have written the Confessions if he had not been first 
the roue Augustine. Luther never could have pinned 
the theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg, 
if he had not been a superstitious monk. John B. 
Gough never could have been the missionary to two 
continents in the cause of temperance, and swayed 
men's hearts as he did sway them, if he had not lain 
drunken in the gutter and fought delirium tremens. 
What is a man to do when he has thrown away his 
life, when he has poison in his veins, when all the 
past influences and all the companions of the present 
enmesh him? Three things. First, repent of the 
sin, turn away from it, abandon it, say, " I will have 
no more to do with it." Second, repair the evil 

46 



so far as it can be repaired. Third, take the expe- 
rience of the past, and make it minister to the wisdom 
and the grace — ay, and I dare to say the glory — 
of the future. 

Virtue, not innocence, was Christ's aim, enlarge- 
ment, not diminution, of life his principle, victory 
over temptation, not escape from it, his method. 

tEfje Sntutttcm 

February Nineteenth 

The soul immediately and directly perceives the 
Infinite. " Spirit with spirit can meet." And, meet- 
ing with his Father and filled with the consciousness 
of the Everlasting Presence, the soul cries out, " Whom 
have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon 
the earth that I desire beside thee." 

The present age is called a sceptical age. In so 
far as it is skeptical the reason may be easily seen. 
We have allowed this spirit in us which immediately 
and directly perceives the invisible and the eternal 
to be quenched. We have been for the last century 
looking, not at the things which are unseen and 
eternal, but at the things which are seen and tem- 
poral. We have focussed our attention on the mate- 
rial world and dimmed our vision of the immaterial 
and spiritual world. 

He who cannot see God lacks, not sound philosophy, 
but spiritual vision. 

So far as this is a sceptical age it is so because it is 
too exclusively a scientific age. 

47 



®t)e Sntuitum 

February Twentieth 

There are men of outsight — careful, skilled, 
trained observers — under whose guidance and direc- 
tion we put ourselves if we desire to investigate the 
external world. There are men of insight, with quick, 
sensitive spiritual vision, under whose guidance and 
direction we may well put ourselves if we desire to 
become acquainted with the invisible world. These 
men also tell us what they have seen; and their testi- 
mony is worthy of our consideration. 

Nor shall we find in literature any better interpre- 
tation of these spiritual visions than in portions of 
the Bible, nor anywhere in the Bible a better inter- 
pretation than in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. 

The real and radical remedy for skepticism is a 
sincere, continuous, and persistent endeavor to ac- 
quaint ourselves with these ideals, and to shape some 
faint image of these visions of truth and beauty in 
our lives. 

What is peculiar to Christendom is an experience of 
forgiveness of sin, which has changed worship from a 
pitiful cry for mercy into a joyful song of thanks- 
giving. 

The test of a religious faith is, Does it work well? 
The spirit and the teachings of Jesus Christ have 
worked well wherever they have been tried. The 
failures in Christendom can all be easily traced to the 
imperfect acceptance of those teachings and the im- 
perfect realization of that spirit. 

48 



0ux lUafcer 

February Twenty-first 

About eighteen centuries ago, a little band of 
twelve, with a Leader, who had chosen them to be 
His companions, were traveling through one of the 
provinces of Rome. They believed — and in that 
age it was a radical belief — that there was a good God 
who ruled the world and was going to bring order out 
of chaos and righteousness out of wrong. They 
believed, too, in their Leader, though they did not 
understand Him. What He said they thought was 
true; what He commanded they were ready to obey; 
whither He led, they desired to follow. He was 
surely worthy of their credence; for He never said 
anything for effect, never anything simply because He 
thought it would sound well or do good; but only 
what He believed to be the truth, and the absolute 
truth. He never commanded them except by the 
enunciation of laws which He interpreted in His own 
life and character ; He never asked them to go whither 
He was not willing to lead; and He never laid on 
them burdens which He was not ready himself to 
carry. They loved Him, though they did not under- 
stand Him. It was this Leader who uttered these 
words to this little band of twelve: " Fear not, little 
flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you 
the kingdom." 



49 



political 3&e£pon*i&tlitie* 

February Twenty-second 

Washington's birthday 

Nor let any one think the ideal of a self-governing 
Republic is so high, so pure, so noble as to be imprac- 
ticable. Nobility never makes an ideal impracticable. 
The realities of achievement have always surpassed 
the ideals of the dreamers. Stephenson in his wildest 
flights of imagination never conceived the railroad 
system of Europe and the United States; Morse 
never dreamed of the electric communication fur- 
nished by the telegraph, the telephone, and the wire- 
less. The mastery of the ocean surpasses the antici- 
pation of the most sanguine inventors; the mastery 
of the air already accomplished by the aeroplanes and 
the dirigibles promises more for the future than any 
poems or prophecies of the past. Washington and 
his contemporaries could have had no conception of a 
Federal Republic overspreading a Continent and 
exercising a moral leadership not only throughout 
Europe but in the Orient. Not even the inspired 
Prophets and Apostles of the New Testament epoch 
could have dreamed of a time when the cross, an 
emblem of degradation, would shine on the domes and 
steeples of unnumbered churches and the name of 
Christian, given to an insignificant heretical Jewish 
sect in derision, would be a title of honor throughout 
the world. The young men shall see visions, and the 
old men shall dream dreams, and these visions and 
these dreams are calls to duty and to achievement. 



50 



W$t pernor* of $eace 

February Twenty-third 

Sometimes the warrior is a peacemaker. " If it 
be possible," says Paul, " as much as lieth in you, live 
peaceably with all men." Sometimes it does not lie 
in us; sometimes it is not possible. It did not lie 
in Christ to live peaceably with men who were de- 
vouring widows' houses and for pretense made long 
prayers; it was not possible for such a one as Christ 
to live peaceably with such false pretenders. It did 
not lie in Washington and his compatriots to live 
peaceably with the oppressive Government of Great 
Britain; it was not possible for them to live peace- 
ably with the oppressors of the American colonies. . . . 
" First pure, then peaceable," is a fundamental 
truth, and it involves another, namely, that purity 
is the only sure foundation for permanent peace. 

Christians are peacemakers — but they are not to 
stand for peace at any price; and they must recog- 
nize, and in our history have recognized, that there 
are worse things even than war, bad as that is. 

Peace is always desirable; but liberty is worth 
more than peace obtained at the cost of liberty. 

0vlx Heaber 

February Twenty-fourth 

It was a wonderful choice, this choice of these 
peasant men to receive the gift of the kingdom; 
wonderful when you consider what that kingdom 

51 



seemed to be to the Leader who promised it. It was 
interpreted afterward by one of His disciples: " The 
kingdoms of this earth shall become the kingdoms of 
our Lord and of his Christ." Fear not, little flock; 
it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the 
kingdoms of the earth. That was the promise. 
He made it clear to them. The whole world, He said, 
is your vineyard; go, sow everywhere; go, preach the 
same glad tidings, the same hope that animates you 
preach to every creature in every part of the world. 
You are but the least of seeds, it is true, but you shall 
grow until at last the organization of which you are 
the beginning has overspread the world. You are 
but a little leaven, it is true, hidden away in three 
measures of meal; men do not see you, they do not 
know what is coming from you; but go, and your 
agitating presence shall go on and on until it has per- 
vaded the whole world and the whole world is changed 
by your presence in it. 

0\xx Heaber 

February Twenty-fifth 

We have a Leader; not a dead leader, either — a 
living leader; a leader who is as truly a leader now as 
He ever was to the twelve of old; a leader as loyal 
to us as He was to them ; a leader who knows a great 
deal better than we know how far we fall short of His 
ideal and our ideal; a leader who understands our 
successes and our failures; a leader who is never dis- 
couraged or disheartened because of them, who never 
gives us up when we give ourselves up; a leader who 

52 



still companions us and loves us, and is in the midst 
of us and who still leads us. The story of His life is 
the story, first of all, of a man; a man who shows how 
a man can love and serve, and how a man can die; 
and we hear Him in His love and in His service and 
in His death, saying: " Follow thou me!" and we 
believe there is no life He has enriched we cannot 
enrich, no achievement He has accomplished we can- 
not accomplish, nothing which He has been we cannot 
be. 

0ux Heaber 

February Tvienty-sixth 

Jesus Christ lived and suffered and died that he 
might bring a new organic life upon the world. Some- 
times he called it the kingdom of heaven, because it 
was the kingdom with which he was familiar. It was 
a kingdom of the celestial sphere ; a kingdom of love 
and service, which is the law of heaven. And some- 
times he called it the kingdom of God, because it was 
a kingdom in which all men's wills would be set, as 
his will was set, to do the will of the Father in heaven; 
in which the world would not be made up of many 
men with many minds and many purposes and many 
conflicting wills contending one with another, but 
in which the world would be made up with all men 
having one will, to do the will of the Father which is 
in heaven. This Christ was no mere good-natured 
philanthropist, traveling about from place to place, 
doing good as it was convenient, healing here a few 
sick, feeding there a few hungry, teaching a few 
ignorant. These were the incidents of his life. He 

53 



came into the world to do his Father's will, and he 
understood that the Father's will was the establish- 
ment of a kingdom that might be called the kingdom 
of heaven. Since it centers around God as the 
planets center around the sun, that might be called 
the kingdom of God. To this end he devoted himself 
with absolute singleness of purpose. 

ibmglene&s of Purpose 

February Twenty-seventh 

Singleness of purpose settles everything. And this 
is what Christ did : He did not go through the world 
lamenting that he could not have this luxury and 
that comfort, and so making sacrifices day by day 
and hour by hour. He once for all settled this; I 
am here to do the Father's will, to accomplish the 
Father's mission, to bring about so far as in me lies 
the kingdom of God on the earth; everything that 
helps that helps me, everything that hinders that 
hinders me. 

So it was nothing to him that he was poor. On the 
whole, the only way he could work was in poverty. 
And when men came to join him, he said, Leave your 
fishing nets and boats and follow me; and when the 
young man came who was rich he said to him, Sell 
your goods, give to the poor, take the same conditions 
that we have. It was nothing to him that he was 
shut out from the best society. He would have liked 
it; he would have enjoyed the best society. But he 
had settled once for all that he was in the world for a 
mission, and the best society of his time was against 

54 



the mission. He was not haunted by questions of 
fear as to duty. The one line of duty was fixed, 
and along that line he marched with undeviating 
tread. Nothing could disturb it. When he went to 
Jerusalem, and Thomas said, " Let us go and die 
with him," he did not halt. When Peter said, God 
forbid that you should be crucified! he said, Get thee 
behind me, Satan! When he was preaching, and the 
people said, He is crazy, and his mother tried to get 
him away, he simply sent out word, My mother, my 
brother, my sister are those that do the will of my 
Father which is in heaven, and went right on. 

®vlx Heabet 

February Twenty-eighth 
Christ comes with this message to men : Work — 
it is not from fear; it is not for food or clothing or 
shelter; these are the mere incidents; work means 
service, and service means love, and love is the highest 
and greatest thing in the world. He comes to be the 
son of a carpenter; He does the common things of 
life; He calls common laborers about Him; He 
beckons and the fishermen leave their boats, and He 
says, Follow me and you shall catch men; He puts a 
new dignity into life; He sends forth His great 
apostle the tent-maker. Christianity went to free- 
men, to slaves, to men who never had thought life 
was worth living; and carried His message: There is 
something you can do with your industry, be not 
eye-servants, be not men-pleasers ; remember that 
you have a Master in heaven; remember that it 

55 



matters little for you whether you are a slave or a 
freeman since you are working for Him and He does 
appreciate and does pay love's wages. Have you 
ever seen the dust in the country road, when suddenly 
the sun breaks through the clouds and shines upon it, 
and all the dust is luminous and turned to gold? So 
this message shines upon this dusty highway of ours, 
and all the drudgery of toil turns golden when life and 
love and hope illuminate it. 

®ut Heaber 

February Twenty-ninth 

And so he lived a joyous life. ... " Blessed are the 
meek, they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are 
the pure in spirit, they shall see God. Blessed are 
the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children 
of God. Blessed are those that are persecuted for 
righteousness' sake, for theirs shall be the kingdom of 
heaven." That is what he said, and that is what he 
believed. And he carried in his life the joy of one 
who inherited the earth, and, therefore, did not need 
to struggle for it; who saw God, and therefore did not 
need to enter into the theological debates about him; 
who was happy in persecution for righteousness' 
sake, because persecution for righteousness' sake 
hastened on the kingdom of righteousness on the 
earth. I know what Isaiah said — " man of sorrows 
and acquainted with grief " — but I also know that 
in the very last hour of his interview with his dis- 
ciples, when he was about to go up to the crucifixion, 
almost his last word was " My joy I give to you." 

56 



I know it is said that he wept, but never laughed. 
Yes, wept, but never for himself, never over his own 
sorrow; wept at the grave of Lazarus, as through that 
grave he saw the sorrows of other weeping ones 
through all the ages; wept, as out of the triumphal 
procession he looked down upon Jerusalem and saw 
the doom that awaited it; wept for others; while his 
heart was full of the joy of self-sacrificing service for 
his God. 

®ux Heaber 

March First 

Thus in the world, seeking to know his Father's 
will, seeking always to do it, seeing as his Father's 
will the building up of a new order and a new king- 
dom in the world, a kingdom of love and of right- 
eousness and of purity, setting himself to this with a 
singleness of purpose that settled all questions of 
sacrifice instantly and forever, living this life joyously, 
referring to the sports of children, to the dancing and 
merry-making of the harvest, to the festival occasion, 
always with approbation, never with contempt — 
this Christ lived in the kingdom about which he 
taught. The kingdom of heaven was not to him a 
kingdom in the future to which by and by he was 
going, nor a kingdom up above him from which he 
had descended and to which he would return again; 
he lived in the kingdom of heaven. He was in it, 
and therefore he had the joy that was the life of it. 



57 



©uv ILzabtv 

March Second 
" I have meat to eat that you know not of," he 
said to his disciples, " you will scatter and leave me 
alone, and yet I shall not be alone, for the Father is 
with me." And when they saw him transfigured on 
the mountain top, they were not surprised; it seemed 
the most natural thing that this man who had walked 
with them as a man from another sphere should be 
seen for this moment as in the other sphere, trans- 
figured, luminous. And so he lived a double life; 
for while he lived in the kingdom of heaven he lived 
on earth. Most human was he, most thoroughly 
human, ministering to men, coming down to men, 
really coming to them, really entering into their life, 
really sharing it, a man among men. No simple 
mover here and there as opportunity chanced for 
him, but one who of deliberate and set purpose 
entered into the human life and shared it with hu- 
manity. 

Nothing, nothing, no folly, no ignorance, no sin 
could separate him from men. He spoke sometimes 
with weariness, he spoke sometimes with wonder, he 
spoke sometimes with indignation, but never did he 
speak of men with contempt. He respected men. 

draper 

March Third 
Father — who hast given us Thy Son to be our 
Comrade, sharing our joys and our sorrows, our 

58 



imperfect knowledge and our imperfect strength, our 
trials and our temptations, sharing everything except 
our sins, we believe in him, in his life, his love, his 
mission. Are we too venturesome if we dare to ask 
for ourselves what Thy Son has asked for us? We 
are Thine: have us in Thy keeping. We ask not 
that Thou shouldest take us out of this sinning and 
sorrowing world; but, Father, give us the strength 
to share with Thy Son the burden of the world's sins 
and sorrows, that with him we may conquer the evil 
that is in the world. Dying, he has sent us into the 
world to carry on the work which Thou gavest to him 
and to us to do. By Thy truth make us holy and 
undefiled, as He was holy and undefiled. Abide in 
us as Thou didst abide in him, that we may be made 
perfect in him with Thee. Is he not still in the world, 
redeeming the world? Suffer us, though we are not 
yet holy and undefiled, to be with him in his great 
mission, understanding his glory because we share it 
with him — the glory of his love, his service, and his 
sacrifice. And this we ask for his sake who is our 
Leader in the great campaign. Amen. 

Cfjriat 

March Fourth 

For forty years at least I have been making the 
life of Christ the center of my study, — the Bible 
the book I have studied most, the New Testament 
that half of the Bible which I have studied most in 
the Bible, the life of Christ that portion of the 
New Testament which I have studied most in the 

59 



New Testament, with such time, such patience, such 
interest and such enthusiasm as I could command, 
— and the more I have studied it the grander his 
life has seemed to me, the more and more trans- 
cendent, the more and more wonderful, until it seems 
to me no longer unreasonable, — once I thought it 
was, or, at least, wondered whether it was, — it 
seems to me no longer unreasonable to believe that 
this good God, who has created the intellectual order 
in the material universe, who has created the moral 
order of the moral universe, who has spoken in frag- 
mentary and broken voices and shown himself in 
shadowy lights, reflections from a mirror seen darkly 
in human experience, has shown himself to the world 
of men in this one central, splendid, lowly life. 

Mftat fa a&eltgton? 

March Fifth 
What have we learned of this Jesus of Nazareth 
from whose cradle sprang this whole wonderful 
growth that we call Christianity? and we have 
answered Saviour — that is what we have found. 
When we compare ourselves with this Jesus of Naza- 
reth what do we find about ourselves? and we have 
answered, sinner — that is what we have found. 
When we consider what this Saviour has done for 
us, when we consider what service he has rendered to 
us, how shall we express that? and the answer has 
come back, Forgiveness — that is what we have 
found. And these four articles embody the article 
of the Christian faith: Father, Saviour, Sin, For- 

60 



giveness. We have elaborated it; we have added def- 
inition on definition and definition on definition; but, 
after all, the four great articles of the Christian creed 
are just those — Father, Saviour, Sin, Forgiveness. 

Religion is reverence toward the Father, love toward 
the Saviour, hate toward the sin, acceptance of the 
forgiveness. It is the life of faith, not a definition 
of what other people have found through their faith. 

Cartel's £ato of Uobt 

March, Sixth 

Christ did not forget that some care of self is neces- 
sary for the largest, truest, and noblest self-sacrifice. 
When with his disciples he had come near the city, 
he did not hesitate to stop because he was tired, and 
rest himself, while he sent his disciples forward to do 
the lesser service, to bring back food for their common 
need. He hired a little fishing-boat, and used to go 
off and take exercise on the lake for rest. He called 
his disciples to go abroad with him for a trip across 
the lake, that he might hide himself in the wilderness; 
when the people followed after him, he came back 
across the sea, and went to Phoenicia to seek hiding 
in that foreign province; when he could not be hid 
there, he went up into the northern mountains, that 
he might there find rest, and in rest strength for new 
work. No! love is not always self -forget fulness. 

Repose of spirit, recurring periods of absolute 
rest, are as necessary for the hearts and minds of 
men and women as for the fields and meadows. 

61 



®f)e (great Companion 

March Seventh 

The last time before his death that Peter looked on 
Jesus was as Jesus was being led out from the court 
of Caiaphas to Pilate's judgment-seat, and the oaths 
and curses with which Peter was denying his Lord 
were still trembling on his lips. The first time after 
his resurrection that Peter saw Jesus was by the 
Galilean Sea, when the Master asked the disciple, 
Do you love me? as many times as the disciple had 
denied the Master. Christ recalled the past, burnt 
it in upon Peter's memory, probed his heart to the 
uttermost, despite the hurt of the probing. But he 
did it only that he might add emphasis to the in- 
struction, " Feed my sheep. ..." 

The Great Companion is still our Companion, 
although we have sinned. That is the Gospel. He 
is what Jesus was, The Friend of sinners. He has 
taken the burden of our sins upon himself. We are 
to show our love and loyalty to him by allowing him 
to take that burden, without attempting to take it 
from him. Go out in Christ's spirit and take upon 
yourself the burden of others' sins, and let him take 
the burden of yours. You cannot alter the past: 
leave that to him; give yourself to the future. You 
cannot earn the remission of your sins: accept it as 
his free gift; then, inspired by gratitude and love to 
him, go forth to carry the remission of sins to others. 
This is the answer to the question, How shall we regain 
our Great Companion? 



62 



Cfjrtet'* Mte&ion 

March Eighth 

Christ came, he tells us himself, that he might give 
life, and that out of that life all things might grow 
that the world needs, of institutions, whether of 
thought or of organism. . . . 

He cam'e not to establish rules for the guidance of 
men. . . . He came to inspire them with a moral life 
of faith and hope and love, out of which their own 
moral life and conduct should blossom forth. . . . 

He came ... to breathe upon them and brood in 
them a great spiritual life, that should phrase itself 
in all varied forms of utterance. . . . 

He came that he might live among men — not 
merely during one short guesthood of thirty years, 
and then go away as though his work was done: he 
came that through the open door of their highest 
needs he might enter into human life and dwell in it 
evermore, transforming man by his own infinite 
personality. 

No barrier could separate him from his fellow-men. 
It was deemed in that time irreligious to teach pagans. 
He spoke to pagans as well as Jews. It was consid- 
ered indecorous to preach religion to women; he 
never hesitated to preach to women. No moral 
degradation was sufficient to separate man or woman 
from his sympathy. The woman that was a sinner, 
the woman that to-day scarce any man is willing to 
recognize as a hopeful object of redemption, to her he 
brought the words of hope; to her he said, Go, and 
sin no more; thy sins be forgiven thee. 

63 



Christ's jflteimt 

March Ninth 

Christ's mission was twofold, — individual and 
social; to make men worthy to be called the chil- 
dren of God, and also to make a state of society on 
the earth worthy to be called the Kingdom of God. 
. . . Jesus Christ's object was not to save some 
— few or many — from a wrecked and lost world ; 
it was to recover the world itself and make it righteous. 
The Lamb of God whom John the Baptist saw came, 
not to take away some sin from some men, but the 
sin of the world. Christ taught his disciples to pray 
that God's name might be hallowed, his kingdom 
might come, his will might be done, on earth as in 
heaven. 

There is no man in all this world who is not worth 
working for, since Christ has worked for all; no man 
in all this world who is not worth dying for, since 
Christ has died for all. 

All men are God's children. To live, to suffer, to 
serve, to die for the feeblest, the poorest, the most 
ignorant, the most unworthy, is to die, to live, to 
suffer, to serve one that has in himself the unde- 
veloped germs of infinite worth. 

Cfcrist'* JWteaion 

March Tenth 

He came to put into government an electricity 
that should purify it, into the family a love that 

64 



should make it sacred, into society a majestic force 
that should draw it together and save it from its own 
anarchy. He came, in a word, to bring God into the 
consciousness and life of men. And he still comes, 
to give wisdom for ignorance, strength for weakness, 
goodness for badness, love for selfishness and passion. 
He comes to give hope to the despairing, and health 
to the sick, and rest to the weary, and life to the dead. 
He is a physician. Christianity is medicine. The 
sum and substance of Christianity is salvation. 

The great good news of the Bible is this: men are 
saved from the burdens of their present life; they are 
saved from the darkness of their skepticism; from 
the bondage of their superstition; from the cruelty 
and the inhumanity of their selfish natures; from the 
weakness of a will that cannot hold them firm and 
strong in the midst of temptation; from sin here and 
now. 

tCfje &mgbom of <gob 

March Eleventh 

In the Sermon on the Mount, he guarded them (his 
disciples) against the danger of trying to do two 
things at once. Do not, he said, imagine that you 
can build up this kingdom by taking for it a part of 
your time or giving to it a part of your energy. Make 
it the first thing. Do not make the first thing getting 
clothes or shelter or food, the very necessaries of 
lif e ; make the first thing building up and maintaining 
the kingdom of unselfishness, of love and faith and 
hope, the kingdom of heaven and of God; make it 

65 



the first object of your life to build up and maintain 
this kingdom, as I have made it the first object of 
my life to build up and maintain this kingdom, and 
leave the other things to follow. 

He . . . urges on his disciples, not certain tenets, 
but certain courses of conduct, — they are to let 
their light shine, to seek kindly relations with offended 
brethren, to five purely in social and domestic re- 
lations, to keep from evil the tongue and the heart, 
out of whose abundance the mouth speaketh, to 
treat even their enemies with kindliness and to regard 
them with benevolence, to pray with simplicity and 
in secret, to give their fives wholly to God's service, 
not to worry, not to judge others, to treat all men with 
justice and good will. 



Wbt Emgbom of <§ob 

March Twelfth 

This kingdom of Christ offers a divine life and a 
divine Master to follow. There are some who hear 
the voice and yet do not see the form; some who 
follow Christ and think they follow duty, and some 
who follow Christ and think they follow philanthropy. 
They are not the happiest; but I do not see how any 
man who believes that Jesus Christ came into the 
world to make a kingdom of God on the earth, who 
believes that through all these centuries he has been 
making a kingdom of God on the earth, that through 
all these centuries by gradual processes he has been 
substituting unselfishness for selfishness and hope for 

66 



dull despair and faith for sensuousness, and that he 
can himself just where he is do something to help 
make this kingdom by himself being a part of the 
kingdom — I do not see how he can help living with 
joy in his heart and radiance on his face. Seek first 
this kingdom; seek it in your lives where you are. 

Elevate our aspiration, purify our desires, cleanse 
our vision, and strengthen our heart, that we may see 
clearly, desire strenuously, stand bravely for Thee and 
Thy work on the earth. Amen. 

tCJje &mgbom of ©eaben 

March Thirteenth 

Paul tells us what the kingdom of heaven means: 
" The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but 
righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit," 
or, " in holiness of spirit." " Righteousness, peace, 
joy in holiness of spirit;" have you to die to get to 
heaven? I should like to know where you could 
expect to find in all the future a better chance to 
stand for righteousness, or a better place in which to 
stand for righteousness, or a time in which men were 
more needed to stand for righteousness. . . . Yet 
how many citizens are there who want to do it? How 
many Christians are there who really want to put on 
the armor and go out and stand for righteousness and 
truth and honor against all corruption and all fraud 
and all dishonor and all attempts to loot government 
for personal pelf? That is heaven. Do you want 
heaven? Well, begin. You never will have a better 
opportunity. 

67 



There are men who are always carrying on a guer- 
rilla warfare with their evil passions. If a man finds 
a foe to his spiritual well-being, he should exterminate 
it and have done with it. We keep in chronic war- 
fare with our pride, our vanity, our appetites, because 
we are afraid of hurting ourselves. " Crucify " the 
old man is Paul's manly advice. Do not parley with 
him; do not make war on him gently. Kill him; 
torture him if need be; get him under six feet of 
sod; and so be at peace with yourself. 



®fte lUngbom ot <©ofc 

March Fourteenth 

I wonder how many men really do in their heart 
of hearts want the kind of spirit which would lead 
them to say: All that I have belongs to God. . . . 
What is mine is God's, that is the motto of the king- 
dom of God. 

We must constantly direct our purpose and our 
policies to the time when the whole world shall have 
become civilized; when men, families, communities, 
will yield to reason and to conscience. 

The remedy for skepticism, and the remedy for 
sensuality and effeminacy and luxury, and the remedy 
for sectarian divisions and strife in the Church of 
Jesus Christ, is all one. It is the spiritual vision that 
knows and sees God, Christ, and immortality, and 
lives with him in the eternal life, here and now! 

68 



proofs of Christianity 
March Fifteenth 

I live on the banks of the Hudson River. I believe 
in the existence of that majestic stream because I see 
the sunshine gleaming from it and the shadows 
creeping over it, the commerce borne upon its bosom. 
I do not have to go back to its source in the Adiron- 
dacks to be sure that it exists. But when I ascend 
to its upper waters, I see that originally it was pure 
and limpid and I know that the impurities which 
make it the unpellucid stream it is in the Highlands 
are the accretions added to it from the lands through 
which it has passed. So I live in Christendom. I 
believe in Christianity because I see what the Christ 
spirit is doing for mankind, what it has done and is 
doing for me, and if trace this purifying stream back 
to its source in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, 
I see that the defects and imperfections in the cur- 
rents of thought and feeling in Christendom to-day are 
due, not to its primal source, but to what has been 
imparted to it but does not truly belong to it — im- 
parted by the community through which it flows, 
and which it is purifying. 

SBatcfi 

March Sixteenth 

It is important to know that by his sacrifice Christ 
saved from sin; it is more important to know that 
by his spirit of sacrifice inspired in all who truly fol- 
low him he is now saving from sin. It is important 
to read in the Sermon on the Mount and in the closing 

69 



chapters of John's Gospel the words Christ spoke to 
his disciples in the first century. It is more impor- 
tant to hear the words he is speaking to us in this 
twentieth century, in every sorrow for sin committed 
or duty neglected, in every aspiration to a higher 
and purer life, in every summons to duty the more 
difficult to do the more joyful in the doing, in every 
mystic consciousness of a transcendent presence 
communing with us in an inexpressible fellowship. 
It is important to know whence he has led his Church 
in the past. It is more important to form some idea 
of whither he is leading the Church in the present and 
to what goal in the future. 

March Seventeenth 

If some persons are kept out of the kingdom of 
heaven by their property, and others by their busi- 
ness, a great many are kept out of the kingdom of 
heaven by society. What is society for? What is 
the object of it? Society is a place in which we inter- 
change life, — at least it ought to be; a place where 
I give you my thoughts, and you give me your 
thoughts; I give you my experience, you give me 
your experience; I give you something of my life, 
you give me something of your life. In many ways 
it is a great deal better than our formal service, where 
I am trying to give life, and you give to me only 
through your eyes and attention. Society is a 
market-place in which life is interchanged. What a 
splendid opportunity that gives for doing Christ's 

70 



work in the world, for carrying Christ's spirit, faith 
and hope and love, and giving it to those who have 
not faith and hope and love. But do you want that 
kind of society? Is that what you go into society 
for? Do we go into it in order that we may give 
what God has given to us ; not always by preaching, 
not always by talking what people call religion, not 
by formal utterances, but by carrying the life in our 
hearts and letting the life shine out simply, naturally, 
and of itself? 

ftotfetp 

March Eighteenth 

Society is, like business and property, for service. 
Do you want to come into the kingdom of God? Do 
you want to bring your receptions, your companion- 
ships, your friendships, — do you want to bring all 
these things and make them the media by which you 
shall carry life out to others, receiving something 
from their life again, and all together coming nearer 
to God's love? If so, do it; that is all. You cannot 
ask a better opportunity. You have the chance. 
The very next reception you go to, go from your 
knees, and carry Christ with you. Ah, do you want 
heaven? Is that the society you and I really do 
want?- Paul says, "Our citizenship is in heaven." 
Christ says, " The kingdom of heaven is at hand." 
" The kingdom of heaven is among you." It is here 
and now. 

A man's religion is good for nothing if he cannot 
take it with him into society, into business, into the 

71 



court-room, into politics, making the light shine 
where now is darkness. 



XLeligion m foetal Conservation 

March Nineteenth 
It is unfortunate that religion has come to be 
tabooed in ordinary social conversation. We can 
talk about politics, business, literature, music, art, 
our homes, our friends, the weather, but we seem to 
regard the religious life as too sacred to be brought 
into common conversation. This may be partly 
because of reserve, partly because we fear the sus- 
picion of ostentation, partly because we have reacted 
against the Phariseeism which delights in exhibit ory 
piety. But, whatever the cause, the result is un- 
fortunate. There is no more reason why religious 
convictions should be excluded from common con- 
versation than political convictions; no more reason 
why we should tacitly forbid all reference to our 
religious life than why we should put a similar pro- 
hibition on our art, literature, or domestic life. 

^appmegs; in Hofatng ®ux jfelloto-jHen 

March Twentieth 
All men are seeking happiness; but they do not 
understand the secret of happiness. It does not 
depend on our conditions or our possessions, but on 
our character; not on what we have or where we are, 
but on what we are. The way to enjoy the world is 
not, Get all you can and keep all you get, but, Give 

72 



good measure, pressed down and running over, for 
with what measure you mete men will measure to you 
again. The way to enjoy the world is to give your- 
selves unselfishly to the service of your fellow-men, 
and take as a free inheritance what life brings to you ; 
it is the meek who inherit the earth. The way to 
win enduring honor is not by fighting for it ; it is the 
peace-makers whom future generations will call the 
children of God. The way to a knowledge of God is 
not a study of theology, but simplicity of purpose and 
cleanness of imagination ; by purity of heart we come 
to know God. 

So, also, the way to please God is not by sacrificing 
oxen and doves to him in the Temple, but by sacrificing 
your own inclinations that you may better serve his 
children in their need. 



Cfjrtettamtp 

March Twenty-first 
Nothing but a healthy public scorn, the kind which 
makes Christ's invectives like a thunderbolt from the 
heavens, terrifying yet purifying, can ever awaken 
from his strange delusion the man who robs the com- 
munity with one hand and thinks to balance the 
account by paying tithes of all he possesses with the 
other. The priest and the Levite who are hurrying 
to church and so have no time to look after their 
plundered fellow-man are not so religious as the 
heretical Samaritan who does not go to church but 
does go to the succor of humanity. The religion of 
the Middle Ages was piety without humanity; it 



built cathedrals and burned heretics. The religion 
of the twentieth century is humanity without piety; 
it maintains great charities, but is not remarkable for 
its church-going. The latter is the more Christly 
religion of the two. But better than either, and more 
nearly Christlike than either, is that religion which 
serves the Father by serving his children, which goes 
up into the Mount of Transfiguration by prayer, and 
comes down into the valley to cure the sick and the 
suffering. 

& (great Heaber 

March Twenty-second 

Paul's Epistles abound in revelations of his varied 
Christian experience. . . . They are all keyed to the 
one note — Christ. Christ is the motive-power of 
his life — " The love of Christ const raineth me." 
Christ is the power of his ministry — "I determined 
to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and 
him crucified." Christ is the world's hope — " Christ 
crucified is the power of God and the wisdom of God." 
Christ is the hope of the individual soul — " Christ 
in us the hope of glory." Christ is the power of his 
own life — "I can do all things through Christ which 
strengtheneth me." Christ is the secret of that deep 
soul agony which is the essence of all true eloquence 
— " My little children," he cries, " of whom I travail 
in birth again until Christ be formed in you." Christ 
is his comfort in church declensions and sectarian 
conflicts — " Whether in pretense or in truth, Christ 
is preached, and I then do rejoice, yea, and will 
rejoice." Christ is his hope and his joy in the presence 

74 



of welcome death — " For me to live is Christ, and 
to die is gain : for to depart and be with Christ is far 
better." 

tKfje Hato of Hibertp 

March Twenty-third 

He who accepts the life of Christ and devotes him- 
self with absolute singleness of purpose to Christ's 
work is thereby released from bondage to rules and 
regulations. The law of the spirit of life in Jesus 
Christ makes him free from the law of sin and death. 
There is to him only one law — Love : Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul 
and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself. If he 
loves God with all his heart, he no longer asks himself 
how much prayer he must offer to his Father. Ritual 
ceases to be his law, and becomes his instrument. 
He uses it when he likes, as he likes, no more than he 
likes, and only as he finds it a useful means for the 
expression of his reverence and his love. If he loves 
his neighbor as himself, he no longer asks what the 
law of honesty requires of him; he does not desire to 
get an advantage for himself out of his neighbor, and 
therefore he has no occasion to ask what kind of 
advantage-getting the law of honesty forbids. His 
inward honesty protects him from all overt acts of 
unfair dealing. If it is his supreme desire to make his 
body the instrument of his spirit, he does not have to 
hedge his appetites about with restrictions. His 
appetites become self -regulating. In short, he who 
always pleases to do right can always do as he pleases, 

75 



"Ye have been called unto liberty; only use not 
liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve 
one another." 

Life is spontaneity, not repression; and the call 
to Christ is a call to that life. 



(gob Creating 

March Twenty-fourth 

God is not a mechanic making a machine by 
processes from without; he works from within. He 
fashions and controls the universe, not as the sculptor 
fashions the plastic clay, but as man's spirit fashions 
and controls his body. Creation is not a product, 
but a process. Spirit is always moving upon the 
face of the waters, always bringing order out of chaos. 
Every day is a creative day. As I am writing these 
lines and look out of my window upon the grass, the 
flowers, the trees, I hear him saying, Let the earth 
bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit 
tree yielding after his kind, whose seed is in itself, 
upon the earth. I hear him saying, Let the waters 
bring forth abundantly the moving creature that 
hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth each 
after their kind. I hear him saying, Let the earth 
bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, 
and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his 
kind. And in myriads of homes I see him breathing 
the breath of life into the babe in the mother's womb 
ajad calling on the fathers and mothers, as fellow- 

76 



workers with him, to make of their babes men and 
women in God's image and after his likeness. . . . 
Since God has made man in his image, it is in man 
I look for his image and in man's work for the inter- 
pretation of God's work. And therefore I see in the 
creative work of the farmer, the mechanic, the en- 
gineer, the architect, the artist — all sharers in the 
world's productive industry — an interpretation of 
the Creator's work. 

Hfmt te CJjrtettattitp? 

Ma, rch Twen ty-fifth 

You say, If I had the temperament of my friend 
here, I could be a Christian, but with my tempera- 
ment I cannot be a Christian, and I cannot change 
my temperament. God does not wish us to change 
our temperaments; he wishes us to give such direc- 
tion to the temperaments we have that they shall 
serve our fellow-man. 

When a soldier enlists in the army he dedicates 
himself to the service of his country, and in offering 
his life offers everything he has. The disciple of 
Christ is a soldier who dedicates himself to the work 
which Christ is doing in the world, and in this dedica- 
tion offers all that he has and all that he is to thac 
service. When he prays " for Jesus' sake," what he 
means, or ought to mean, is that he desires the thing 
for which he has asked in order that he may better 
render that service to which he has dedicated himself. 
So, in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus begins it with the 

77 



petition, " Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on 
earth as it is in heaven; " so, in his own prayer, 
recorded in the seventeenth chapter of St. John, he 
closes it with the petition " that the love wherewith 
thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them; " 
so, in his 'prayer in Gethsemane, he prays, " Not my 
will, but thine, be done." 



tJCfje Crofom of &igf)teouanetf$r 

March Twenty-sixth 

This is our twofold problem: to subdue the earth 
and make it minister to us; to subdue our own ap- 
petites and passions, and make ourselves masters of 
ourselves. 

Not yet is the will of God fulfilled on the earth. 
It is our splendid problem to do the work and brave 
the battle to which the Master calls us, that we may 
share with him the peril and the struggles, and so the 
glory, of the great achievement. 

The reward of righteousness is righteousness. 
Christ calls on us to follow him. What shall we have, 
therefore? The privilege of following so great a 
Leader. God calls us to live the divine life. What 
is the recompense? The life that we live. 

We do not forego life here for life hereafter; our 
earthly crown for a heavenly; a brief pleasure for 
eternal joy; earth now for heaven then. The 
reward is not green fields and a tree-shaded river. 
Those this world furnishes us. It is not a street whose 
pavements are gold. The New Jerusalem is described 

78 



as paved with gold to make clear to us that what we 
so foolishly covet here we shall find but as the dirt 
beneath our feet there. The reward of godliness is 
God. 

BTfte CJjrtsftian TLiU 

March Twenty-seventh 

Our race is — forgetting those things which are 
behind and reaching forward to those things that are 
before — to press toward the mark of upward call 
of God in Christ Jesus — a call that ever says higher 
and still higher. Nor shall the Christian soul be 
satisfied until it has a character so pure and true that 
it rings responsive to every verse in the fifth chapter 
of Matthew; knows no lustful thought, knows no 
uncharitable thought, knows no profane thought, 
knows no hateful thought, loves all men, loves ene- 
mies. Nor shall the Christian ideal be satisfied in 
our lives until our service is sacrifice and our sacri- 
fice is joy. Nor shall the Christian ideal be attained 
by us until our submission is more than resignation 
and our prayer is not what we will, but what Thou 
wilt. Nor shall our Christian ideal be reached until 
our life of devotion is no longer asking the Father for 
things, but living in the Father as Christ lived in 
Him, sharing the glory of the Father as Christ shared 
that glory; not wrestling in prayer, but coming to 
Him always with the word, " I know that Thou 
hearest me always." 

Eternal vigilance is the price, not only of liberty, 
but of all forms of righteousness. 

79 



©o Hibe is Cftrtet 

March Twenty-eighth 

PALM SUNDAY 

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 

— Philippians, i, 21. 

And so, this Palm Sunday morning that celebrates 
the time when Christ came in prophetic procession, 
declaring that in some future time, how far away no 
one knows, He will come again to the world, not 
with weeping, but only with gladness and rejoicing, 
I ask you to swell His procession, not by song only, 
not by creed only, not by prayer only, but by living 
Christ. Christ does not ask the lawyer to leave his 
office, or the merchant his shop, or the carpenter his 
bench, or the politician his senate chamber, or the 
soldier his ranks, any more than he asks the preacher 
to leave his pulpit. He summons you, not to preach, 
not to talk, not to sing, save as these are the expres- 
sions of life; He summons you to live Christ. Then, 
having, indeed, lived Christ, and drawn near that 
door the curtain of which is black on this side and 
golden with glory on the other, you will say to die is 
gain — because to die is still to live, and live a Christly 
life more simply, more easily, more royally, more 
divinely; nay, a life from which the unchristly ele- 
ments will have been taken from your heart. 

Help us to believe in Thee ; to love Thee ; to follow 
Thee; to live Thee; so, when death shall come, to 
die in Thee. For Thine own namesake, O Christ! 
Amen. 

80 



Valuation 

Ma rch Twenty-ninth 

The suffering of Jesus Christ is a suffering not for 
the sake of letting men off from punishment, but for 
the sake of purifying men. 

Every fatigue, every weariness, every hour of soul 
weariness, of world-disgust, of ennui, is an invita- 
tion of Christ to come to him. You have neither to 
repent nor to believe before coming; coming is re- 
pentance and belief. 

Every repentance should be accompanied by deeds 
meet for repentance. 

The most awful fact of human life is the power of 
the human soul to accept God or reject him as it will. 

No man can sell himself so entirely that the voice 
of his inner life will not sometimes pierce him to the 
heart and make all his pursuits and gains a mockery. 
No one can gather such treasures of pleasant things 
with which to shut out care and sorrow that a sudden 
blast of trouble may not scatter them to the winds. 
And there is no way in which the Heavenly Father 
shows his love more tenderly than in these hard and 
bitter experiences. He will not suffer the son to 
become a servant to any master without bringing to 
his memory his birthright of freedom, recollections 
of youthful aspirations, old hopes and aims; visions 
of a higher life mingle with and embitter the life that 
is mean or sordid or slothful. 

81 



March Thirtieth 

It is for your benefit, says Christ, that I am going 
away; for if I do not go away the Holy Spirit cannot 
come to you. The very essence of this declaration 
is that it is better for the world that the manifestation 
of God should not be in visible form, should not be 
tangible, should not be such as we can see with our 
eyes and handle with our hands — but that it should 
be spiritual. It is better, because, among other 
reasons, it can be universal. It is better than any 
succession of epiphanies through human manifesta- 
tions, because they would almost inevitably de- 
generate into idol worship — into man worship. So 
long as God dwelt in human guise upon the earth, in 
Palestine, so long as that was the great manifestation 
of Him, only a few men could be at His side, could 
hear His words, could look upon His life and share it 
with Him. The ointment was in a bottle; very 
precious the ointment and very precious the bottle; 
the crucifixion broke the bottle and the perfume 
fills the world. 

Sacrifice 

March Thirty-first 

The cross of Christ is like a window through which 
the soul, looking, sees the eternal facts: the Lamb 
slain from the foundation of the world, God the 
Father bearing the sins and sufferings of all his 
children on his heart through all ages, until he shall 
bear them away; pouring out his life-blood through 

82 



all the ages, until, pouring it into these poisoned 
veins of ours, he shall have cleansed them of their 
impurity, filled them with a new life-current, and 
made us worthy to be called children of God. 

He lived a life of love — absolute, unsullied, quiet 
love, unhindered by passion, unchecked by selfishness, 
unpolluted by irritableness or ungodly life; a life of 
love in service, of love in service wrought in sacrifice, 
of love in service wrought in sacrifice culminating in 
death. Is there any higher conception of goodness 
than that? I can find none. I look in fife — I can 
see nothing better than this: Love, service, sacrifice. 
I look in nature — I can conceive nothing better than 
this: Love, service, sacrifice. It is the whole trinity 
of noble living. All that is worthy in life is in those 
three words — love — service — sacrifice. 

So to live as to be willing to die, and so to live as to 
be willing to die for men who do not deserve love and 
do not appreciate love, — that is supreme. 

Sacrifice 

April First 
The law of sacrifice is the eternal law of life. 

To deny oneself is not to lose anything. It is to 
give up the inferior for the superior; the immediate 
gain for the future and greater gain; the material 
joy for the spiritual possession. No life is sound, 
healthy, or genuine which is not full of self-denial, 
and no man or woman has come to any real self- 

83 



mastery until self-denial has ceased to be entirely a 
cross, and become a deep source of satisfaction and 
joy. 

Temptation resisted and sorrow rightly borne 
make wonderful disclosures of truth; the inquiry 
of every one who passes through these experiences 
ought always to be "What is God teaching? " The 
trial which does not lift a cloud, or open a new out- 
look upon the world, has failed of its purpose. At 
the end of every Lenten season the sunshine of Easter 
waits; so at the end of every sorrow borne with 
patience and with a desire to know the will of God, 
there stands some newly-risen hope or purpose which 
has put on the garments of immortality. 

GTfje iHmtetrp of J essua Cfirtet 

April Second 

GOOD FRIDAY 

As Jesus Christ was about to die, he called the 
twelve disciples about him and said to them, " A 
new commandment I give unto you, That ye love 
one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love 
one another.' ' His life gave to love a new signifi- 
cance. Not that self-sacrifice had never been known 
before, but never on such a scale and with such an 
inspiration. He did not merely love his neighbor as 
he loved himself; he loved men and gave himself for 
them. As he marched to death women followed after 
him weeping tears of pity, and he turned toward them 
with the word, " Weep not for me; weep for your- 

84 



selves." The soldiers laid him on the cross and drove 
the nails through his quivering hands and feet. He 
cried for mercy, not for himself, but for the men who 
were nailing him to the cross. As he hung there, 
the hot sun beating upon his head, the pestering 
gnats stinging his unprotected face, his head throbbing 
with unutterable anguish, he saw before him his 
mother and his beloved disciple; and in that hour, 
when he might well have looked to them for strength, 
he thought alone of them and their future loneliness, 
and when he could no longer speak a completed 
sentence, in broken accents, he commended them 
each to the other's care: " Mother — look — thy 
son! Son — look — thy mother! " And so he died. 
And from that figure comes down through the ages 
this word, that every man might well honor and 
revere: As I have loved you, that so also ye love one 
another. 

Sacrifice 

April Third 

You can know what Christ's death may be to you. 
If you have come in here with a burden, He can take 
it off. If you have come in here careless, He can 
teach you to know your need. If you are a sinner 
and know your need of forgiveness, He can bring 
you forgiveness and send you away rejoicing. If 
you have come in here with a hard heart, He can take 
the hardness and bitterness out, and He can make 
you see that it is a splendid thing to suffer for one 
who does not deserve the suffering. . . . 

85 



True! self-denial shall bring its reward; true- 
the cross shall bring the crown. But he who bears 
the cross only that he may get the crown, who denies 
himself to-day only that he may indulge himself in 
eternity, is acting only from a refined selfishness. 
The Christian counts the cost, but not the profit; 
he denies himself that he may win, not crowns, but 
crosses; that he may be found in Christ ; that he may 
have his glory — the glory of the Crucified, the 
glory of a patient, suffering love. 

God leads us along dark and terrible ways, but he 
asks us to walk in no path along which he has not 
trodden himself, and in all our sorrows he gives to 
the open heart and the trustful spirit the peace which 
passeth all understanding. 

an Caster jWe&sage 

April Fourth 

The first four centuries of the Christian era were 
centuries of resurrection. They were a rising of the 
dead into life. This is the first Easter message. 
You and I are sons of God. You Christian men, 
who have long walked in Christian ways, who have 
long followed Christ, you are sons of God. You 
who have just begun, you are sons of God. You 
who are questioning whether you will begin or not, 
you are sons of God. You who have never thought of 
joining the church, you who have .never thought of 
being Christians, you who are satisfied to live your 
present fife and be a mere machine for gathering gold 

86 



or silver or printed paper money, you who measure a 
man by the amount of money he makes and not by 
the use he is able to put it to, even you are sons of 
God. You proud people, you self-satisfied peop 1 , 
you young men who think that there is nothing in 
life but success, and nothing in success but dollar 
marks, you are sons of God. There is not a man here 
so discouraged, so disheartened; not a man so self- 
conceited — and he is worst of all — who is not a 
son of God. There is something better in life for 
you than is bounded by the present horizon. There 
is something better for you than simply to delve and 
dig. You are immortal; you are a child of God. 
You have in you a faith though you do not know it; 
eyes though you have never opened them; the pos- 
sibilities of a hope if you could only arouse it; a 
sleeping and splendid life — oh, that you would but 
let the Christ this Easter morn awaken it! 

&n €astfer $legaage 

April Fifth 
He went everywhere, and his apostles went every- 
where, saying to men, you are children of God. He 
did not argue this, he took it for granted. When ye 
pray, say Our Father. That was enough, and their 
hearts responded, and they began to say Our 
Father. Men and women who had been without 
hope, who had been without love, without faith, or at 
least without this consciousness of faith and hope 
and love, began to flock about him, because by his 
words, his presence, his life he evoked in them the 

87 



faith, the hope, the love which was dormant but un- 
recognized. And they wondered and rejoiced in the 
resurrection taking place in them. When he died 
and his apostles went forth, their message was, 
primarily, a message of the resurrection; not merely 
that this man had died and come forth from the grave 
again, but that he had himself possessed an incor- 
ruptible life, and that all men possessed in themselves 
an incorruptible life. The message was carried for- 
ward into Greece and Rome, to slaves, to freedmen, 
to men in bondage, to men who had counted them- 
selves but as dumb, driven cattle, to men who had 
counted themselves but as machines — to them there 
came the word, You are men, you are children 
of God, you have in yourselves an immortal, eternal 
life, you are worthier than you thought you were. 
The first growth of the Christian church was less a 
conversion than a resurrection, less a conscious 
turning away from sin than a waking from uncon- 
scious death into conscious life. 



fln Carter Jlessage 

April Sixth 
Set aside, if you have ever had it, the notion that 
immortal or eternal life is something to come by and 
by, after you have died and risen again from the 
dead. Understand that immortality is a present 
possession. You are immortal, or you never will be. 
Then consider what are the laws of this spiritual life, 
this immortal life, this eternal life, compliance with 
which is necessary to the maintenance of it. 

88 



I will only indicate some of them. 

In the first place, if you wish this immortal life 
here and hereafter, first of all you must desire it. It 
must be an object of controlling desire. " Blessed 
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness, for they shall be rilled; " but they must hunger 
and thirst. " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye, 
buy wine and milk without money and without price ; " 
but they must thirst, and they must come. " Who- 
soever will, let him take of the water of life freely; " 
but he must will. Life is the product of a serious 
and earnest desire for it. I wonder how strong that 
desire really is in us. 

Su €a*ter JHestfage 

April Seventh 
You must seek immortal life; you must seek it 
from God; you must seek it where it may be found. 
You must seek it in the companionship of those who 
are seeking it, as well as in solitude. You must seek 
it where others find it, in the church. But that is 
not enough. You must seek it in all the ministries 
of life. Religion is not a supplement of life; it is 
not an addition to life. Religion is knowing how to 
use one's life. I think religion may be defined as the 
art of living; I will not even say the art of right 
living, for wrong living is dying. It is knowing how 
to use eye and hand and foot, how to use intellect 
and fancy and imagination, how to use conscience 
and faith and reverence and hope and love. If you 
would develop this higher life, the life of conscience 

89 



and faith and hope and love, the life of the spirit, 
the life of the immortal, the deathless nature, you 
must learn how to employ all the activities of life 
for spiritual ends and in obedience to spiritual laws. 

Roman philanthropy confined itself to making 
people comfortable or happy, or perchance merry, 
here and now. But Christ has shown a better way. 
His Easter message is something different from this. 
It is no longer merely, feed the hungry, but so quicken 
the life of this hungry one that he shall be able to 
feed himself. It is no longer, emancipate this race, 
but put such life and power into men that they shall 
emancipate themselves. It is a message of self-help. 

a&esurmttcm 

April Eighth 

The resurrection of Jesus Christ seems to me one 
of the best, I had almost said the very best, attested 
fact of ancient history. But it also seems to me not 
at all an extraordinary event, only an extraordinary 
evidence of an ordinary event. It was the natural 
culmination of Christ's teaching. When he cried, 
" Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," 
he expressed a universal human experience. In 
every death the child of God commits his spirit to 
his Father's care and keeping. He breaks loose 
from the trammels of the body to a freer life, and the 
body returns to the dust from which it came. . . . 
And where he is, we, his followers, shall be also, carry- 
ing on in a larger sphere, and with far greater oppor- 

90 



tunities of service, the life of love we have shared 
with him while in the body pent. 

you that are his pupils, learn, in this age of un- 
belief, this lesson: God is not an embalmed God, in 
a dead book. Christ is not a crucified and buried 
Christ, with seals upon the tomb. God is a living 
God in the hearts of all that love him; and Christ 
is a risen Christ, that marches on before; and we 
are his followers. 

Christ's resurrection brought life and immortality 
to light. It converted the fabric of a dream into an 
historic reality; it transformed a despairing hope 
into a calm assurance. To the believer in Christ's 
resurrection, immortality is no longer a hope. He 
looks in through the open door and sees the world of 
light beyond. 

Resurrection 

April Ninth 

To Jesus Christ death and the resurrection were 
not separable events, with a long interval between 
the two. They were simultaneous events; rather, 
they were synonymous words, signifying the same 
event. Death is the dropping of the body into the 
grave, where it mingles with the dust and comes 
forth no more in resurrection except in grass and 
flowers. Resurrection is the upspringing of the 
spirit from the body, when, through accident, dis- 
ease, or old age, it has ceased to be a tenantable 
abode. Three times Jesus Christ raised the dead. 
Each time he assumed that the freed spirit was close 

91 



at hand, could hear his voice and would obey; each 
time the spirit which had escaped from its tenement 
returned to animate it again. 

To believe in the empty tomb is not to believe in 
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. To 
believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the 
dead is to believe that the spirit which animated 
him is a living spirit dwelling in the world to-day, 
transforming Simon from a character as unstable 
as a wave of the sea into Peter, a character as firm 
as a rock; and John from an ambitious office-seeker 
into an apostle of love; inspiring his disciples with 
a courage to dare, an energy to do, a patience to 
endure, a love to serve. It is to believe in an Em- 
manuel — God with us. 

3fotmortaIttj> 

April Tenth 
Has it never occurred to you that perhaps the 
reason why men do not believe there is immortality 
is that they are not living an immortal life? The 
seed in the ground — how long does it lie there 
wondering whether the sunlight will ever come to it? 
No! no! It bursts up and reaches out toward sun- 
light and life. 

Here is a long row of witnesses, by the hundreds 
and the millions, who bear their testimony: he has 
borne our sins; he has carried our iniquity; he has 
taken off our burden; he has taken the sorrow out 
of our heart; he has put a new song on our lips. 

92 



Run up your signal; you do not know where he is? 
Throw up your arm; trust the voices of men who 
say to you that on this great ocean of life where you 
are tossing and think you are alone, you are not 
alone. We have been where you are; we have given 
out our signal; the active arm has been reached out 
to us; we have been helped. 



(gob ti)e Snbtetble ij9otoer 

April Eleventh 

This power to look at the things which are unseen 
is the secret of all human influences which survive 
the grave. ... I was in active life during Abraham 
Lincoln's Presidency. I do not hesitate to affirm 
that Abraham Lincoln's influence to-day is much 
greater than it was during the Civil War. It was 
then confined to America; it is now as wide as the 
world. . . . 

Of all the influences which have come down to us 
from the past none is so great as the influence which 
comes from Jesus Christ. He is a far greater power 
in the twentieth century than he was in the first. 
His influence is confined to no Church and to no 
country. . . . 

What is the secret of this invisible world in which 
we five? What is the secret of this invisible power 
which rules in all the material world and in all human 
history which we must see if we are to control the 
material world or successfully guide the world of men? 
God. 

93 



<§ob 

April Twelfth 
As I think of God universally, continually, day 
by day, hour by hour, creating, so I think of him not 
ruling over the creation which he has made, but 
ruling in it, as my spirit rules in my body; omni- 
present in the universe, as my spirit is omnipresent 
in my body. 

He is still here, still pouring into them the treasures 
of his illimitable life. The question is not, What 
can you do? but, What can you and God together 
do? not, What can you do apart from him to win 
your way to his favor? but, What can you do as the 
recipient of his favor? Christ in us is the hope of 
our glory. 

God possesses a character such that he is forever 
going out of himself, like the shepherd after the lost 
sheep, that he may pour his own life-currents into 
every willing, wistful child. 

<©ob 

April Thirteenth 
He that bears with divine patience a heavy burden 
shows every witnessing soul how lighter burdens may 
be borne. The most sacred of all ordinations is the 
ordination of sorrow; the most glorious of all offices 
is the office of burden-bearer. God is laying on 
you what he laid on his well-beloved Son; he is 
honoring you as he honored his well-beloved Son. 

94 



The burden which Christ bore for the whole world 
you are bearing for your little world. The cross 
which Christ has laid down you have taken up. 

He who believes that God is in his world, that 
above all earthly plans and purposes there is One 
who gives to his children their ideals and inspires 
them with their courage, and that history is in very 
truth the working out of his plans for his children, 
will find despair for the world impossible. He who 
looks back only four years may find in those four 
years food for his doubts and discouragements, but 
he who looks back a hundred years must have a 
great genius for pessimism if he can doubt in what 
direction the unseen forces are carrying the human 
race. 

<gob 
April Fourteenth 

God and his truth and his law and his love are 
changeless, though our understanding of them is ever 
changing. 

The whole world seems to me to be seeking after 
God, and God seeking after the whole world. God 
seeking after men? Cannot he do everything? No! 
A mother cannot reveal astronomy to a babe four 
years old. God can reveal himself to us only so far 
as there is in us capacity to receive the revelation; 
and it seems to me that God is trying all methods, 
all plans, that he may reach the hearts of men and 
awaken them, and cause them to see that God is in 
his world, and that God is their friend. . . . 

95 



God is one who comes to earth, searches men out, 
suffers in their suffering, bears the burden of their 
sinning, and offers to fill them with himself that they 
may become like him. To see that God is such as 
this; to believe in him, open the heart to him, re- 
ceive him, long to be like him; to love as he loves, 
serve as he serves, pity as he pities, suffer as he suffers, 
and redeem as he redeems, — this is to live; and he 
who in his aspirations and desires begins thus to live 
is at one with God. " Thus reflecting as a mirror the 
glory of the Lord we are transformed into the same 
image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, 
the Spirit. ,, 

Cijttet'g $eace 

April Fifteenth 

How does the world give peace? By trying to 
take people out of the conditions which bring trouble. 
We fall asleep and forget our troubles. We plunge 
into pleasure or business that we may escape our 
troubles. We steel our hearts to the troubles of 
others, pass by on the other side, do not see them. 
This is the way the world gives peace. But this is 
not Christ's way. It is not peace from trouble, it 
is peace in trouble. " My peace," he says. But he 
did not find peace by escaping from trouble ; he came 
from the peaceful atmosphere into the tempestuous 
atmosphere, out of the serenity into the storm; came 
that he might carry our burdens, bear our sorrows, 
and be wounded for our sins ; that our troubles might 
trouble him, our cares might weigh upon him. And 

96 



they really did. He so carried them that men saw 
in his very face that he carried them. Christ's peace 
was not the peace of exemption from trouble; it was 
the peace of a serene spirit in the midst of trouble. 



Wbt $eace of #ob 

April Sixteenth 

Last August, as we sailed out of Queenstown Har- 
bor in the steamer, we went into the teeth of a great 
gale. The wind was howling, the rain was beating 
upon the deck of our steamer, the great waves were 
running and every now and then sweeping over our 
lower decks. And we sat there under the awning, 
protected from the rain, looking out on the waters, 
and on the Mother Carey chickens riding on the crest 
of the waves, in the midst of the tempest. Every now 
and then a great wave would dash over a little bird, 
and it would seem to be gone, and then in a moment 
there it was again, shaking its head and wings and 
flinging off the spray and riding in the storm and ex- 
ulting in it. " O little bird, you have been a mes- 
senger of the good God. Teach me how, when the 
time of tempest and storm shall come to me — teach 
me how to ride on the waves, to be overwhelmed 
and yet not be overwhelmed, to shake off the trouble 
and yet live in the trouble. Teach me that lesson, 
little bird! " 



97 



®!je $eace of d£ob 

April Seventeenth 

I have stood on the top of the mountain, and have 
seen the clouds gather round its top, and have seen 
them settle down upon the valley below, and have 
heard the thunder muttering there, and have seen 
the lightning-flashes playing below my feet, and have 
seen the birds come flying up through the clouds, 
singing on the mountain-top, while the thunder was 
threatening and the lightning was playing havoc in 
the valley. So learn to fly above these lower earthly 
storms that are so low and he only in the hollows, and 
find that song always to be found in the mountain- 
top and in the sunlight. It is possible. We can do 
it. Men and women have done it. 

The last six years of my pastorate, my library, a 
room well lined with books, overlooked the East 
River, and gave me in the winter evenings, when the 
office buildings were lighted, a wonderful, fairy-like 
picture. There were times when, looking down from 
the repose of my study upon the bustling metropolis, 
so remote and yet so near, it seemed to me that I 
could imagine how its worries and its ambitions might 
appear to a citizen of the celestial sphere ; it gave me 
of the world an unworldly vision. 

tEfje peace of (gob 

April Eighteenth 

0, when anxiety plows into your heart, when per- 
plexity entangles you, when troubles gather around 



you and upon you, think for a moment — for a 
moment? think for one half -hour — of the eternal 
quietude and peace of your Father. Come into his 
presence, and from him take peace. 

This peace that is of God belongs to God, is God's 
gift to us, when we are willing to take God's gift. We 
are continually trying to find peace by getting God 
to will as we will. But not so does the soul ever find 
peace. We do find peace when we bring ourselves 
to will as God wills. When we lift up our prayers to 
God to get him to do what we think best, then we 
struggle, and are worried and worn. When we lift up 
our prayers to God that he should make us will as 
he wills, then we find the way to peace^and quietness, 
and in quietness and in confidence we find strength. 

One may make peace by possessing a spirit of peace 
which he diffuses about him wherever he goes. A 
peaceful heart in the midst of turmoil and contention 
is itself a peacemaker. . . . Who has not known 
sometimes a strong man, oftener a sainted woman, 
whose very presence has diffused such an atmosphere 
of peace that strife and contention die out when he 
enters the room? The battle of words is abated; 
half -drawn swords are returned to their scabbards; 
the lightning gleam dies out from the eyes; the 
clenched fist relaxes, and perhaps presently the palms 
of the two combatants are brought together in a 
cordial handshake. The peacemaker has made peace 
without knowing that he did it, but others present 
have known, and in their hearts blessed the uncon- 
scious peacemaker. 

99 



tKfte $eate of <@ob 

April Nineteenth 

My peace give I unto you, said Christ. I think I 
see him now, standing in the midst of that howling 
multitude clamorous for his death; the blood is 
streaming from his back; the crown of thorns is upon 
him, and the blood is streaming from those wounds 
also. But crueler and harder to be borne than wounds 
of scourge or wounds of thorns are the wounds that 
enter the heart of love, when it feels the storm of 
hate and fury and passion let loose to work its worst. 
And yet he is at peace. And I see the far-away look 
in his deep blue eye, and the heavenly calm on his 
placid countenance; for he is in the midst of the 
tempest, but unperturbed by it. Peaceful! peaceful! 
And this is the peace he gives to us his disciples. 

Grant to us, O Thou that wert at peace in the tem- 
pest, thine own spirit of faith and trust, that in our 
loneliness we, too, may not be alone, but, in the com- 
panionship of God, may have the peace of God thou 
givest to thy followers! 

Higfjt after Barfeneflfc 

April Twentieth 

I wonder if there be one of us who does not some- 
times feel himself like a ship out on the Atlantic 
Ocean, with fire beneath the hatches, all the time 
pouring the water on, sometimes with more smoke 
and sometimes with less, and sometimes with a little 
hope that the fire is out; then suddenly the passion 
of heat, the passion of temptation, the passion of 

100 



anger, the passion of sensuality springs out again 
when it seemed extinguished, and you are almost 
prepared to say, it is no use, I will give it up. And 
then has there not come to you, perhaps after a sleep, 
perhaps after a long vacation, perhaps after an en- 
forced rest, a new courage and a new hope, and have 
you not risen from your bed of sickness, it may be, 
come forth from your vacation, risen from your long 
night of sleep, with a new courage, hope and vigor 
and a new song? There is more power in conscience 
than in greed, in right than wrong; there is more 
power in God than in all the forces of hell combined. 
And if there were not this sense of invisible reinforce- 
ment that comes to the poorest, that comes to those 
who have least faith, who do not understand the 
words that are spoken and do not perceive the vision 
before us, if it were not for this inspiration that comes 
to us, that inspires us afresh, the world would long 
since have lapsed into anarchy and chaos. 

Uobe 

April Twenty-first 

Thou shalt love the Lord thy Cod with all thy heart, and with 
all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength : 
this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely 
this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 

Love has many phases : love of husband and wife, 
parent and child, friend and friend, neighbor and 
neighbor, are not the same. Love does not always 
mean congenial fellowship. There is no reason for 
imagining that the Good Samaritan found the de- 
spoiled traveler an agreeable comrade; certainly 

101 



Jesus did not find comradeship in Judas Iscariot, 
and yet it is said that, having loved his own, he loved 
them to the end. 

There is in all the various inflections of love one 
common element if that is present, love is not lack- 
ing; if that is lacking, what we sometimes call love 
is but a spurious counterfeit. That common element 
is a sincere desire for the welfare of the loved one. 
No passion of the husband for his wife can serve as a 
substitute for this simple desire for her welfare dom- 
inating his life and controlling his actions. When 
the pseudo-reformer tells us that marriage without 
love is a profanation and that when love ceases the 
marriage tie should be dissolved, what does he mean? 
Does he mean that when passion ceases, the marriage 
tie should be dissolved? That is not true. Passion 
does not sanctify marriage; marriage sanctifies pas- 
sion. Or does he mean that when this simple and 
sincere desire for each other's welfare ceases, the tie 
should be dissolved? But neither has a right to 
allow that desire to cease. Passion is spontaneous; 
and it is often transient. But love, the love that 
suffers long and still is kind, never should be allowed 
to die. It is immune, not from pain, but from sick- 
ness and death. . . . Kisses and caresses can 
never take the place of this masterful motive of 
true, helpful service. This motive may be accom- 
panied by emotions which bring the holiest joy or 
the bitterest sorrow; but if it is not strong enough to 
endure the bitterest sorrow, if it is not stronger than 
the most tumultuous joy, it is not true love; cer- 
tainly it lacks something of being perfect love. 

102 



Eobe 

April Twenty-second 

The law that we are to regard our neighbor's wel- 
fare as we regard our own, is the condition, and the 
only condition, of true abiding social order. He who 
regards his neighbor's welfare as his own will not 
oppress him, nor rob him, nor vilify him. ... If the 
laborer regarded his employer's welfare as his own, 
and the employer regarded the workingman's wel- 
fare as his own, there would be an end to strikes and 
lockouts; the controversies would be kindly con- 
troversies and easily adjusted. If the maid regarded 
the welfare of the mistress as her own, and the mis- 
tress regarded the welfare of the maid as her own, 
the domestic problem would cease to be " the great- 
est plague of life." If the merchant regarded the 
customer's welfare as his own, and the customer 
regarded the merchant's welfare as his own, there 
would be an end to "it is naught, it is naught, saith 
the buyer, and goeth away and boasteth." If the 
white man regarded the negro's welfare as his own, the 
race problem would be easily solved. Love would 
no more mean social comradeship between the races 
than it means social comradeship between individuals ; 
but it would mean justice and fair dealing. If each 
nation regarded the other nations' welfare as its own, 
war would cease and we could beat our swords into 
ploughshares and our spears into pruning-hooks. 
In individual and in international relations we would 
no longer attempt to make a profit out of one another's 
necessities. 

103 



Hobe 

April Twenty-third 

The relations between employer and employed 
are those of colaborers in a common enterprise. . . . 
If their joint work is to go on peacefully and pros- 
perously, the relation between them must be one of 
mutual confidence and respect. This is the postulate 
of the new political economy. And all schemes of 
collective bargaining, profit-sharing, and the like 
are valuable only as they are the products of this 
spirit or tend to promote it. 

To love God with all the heart, and soul, and mind, 
and strength is to make God's welfare — that is, the 
progress and prosperity of his work in the world — 
one's supreme desire. As to love one's neighbor as 
one's self is the secret of social order, so to love God 
with all the heart, and soul, and mind, and strength 
is the secret of all high, holy, and joyous living. To 
love God is not to sing praises to him, nor to utter 
prayers to him, nor to offer sacrifices to him, nor to 
make contributions from one's purse to his Church. 
This may help or it may hinder. It helps when it 
promotes the love that is service; it hinders when it 
takes the place of the love that is service. 

All religion is summed up in these two words — 
law and gospel; and these two words in one word — 
love. For to love God and serve him, and to love 
your neighbor and try to do him good, and to be sorry 
that you have done wrong and to try to do better and 
be better, and to do all in hope and trust in God — 

104 



that God who looks down upon you through the face 
of Christ — that is the whole of Christ's religion — 
all of it, all of it. 

ILobc 

April Twenty-fourth 

To devote one's self to working with the Father to 
accomplish the Father's ends — this is to love God; 
to devote one's self wholly and unreservedly to this 
work is to love him supremely. 

To join with God in carrying out his plan, so to 
join with him in this work that it shall inspire all 
one's enthusiasm, determine finally and forever the 
direction of one's life, employ all one's intellectual 
energies, and both create and employ one's powers, 
is to love God with all the heart, and with all 
the soul, and with all the mind, and with all the 
strength. . . . By his manifestation of himself in the 
life and career of Jesus of Nazareth, God has made 
clear to men what is his heart's desire for his 
children, and to them he has intrusted the carrying 
on to its completion this work of lifting men up into 
such companionship with him that he shall be in very 
truth the Father of whom every family in heaven 
and on earth is named. That is the end of evolution, 
the meaning of redemption — one is the scientist's 
word, the other is the word of the theologian for the 
same historic process — a new humanity in fellow- 
ship with God, a new social order which shall be per- 
vaded by righteousness or the spirit which regards 
another's welfare as one regards his own, by peace or 

105 



universal goodwill, founded on righteousness, and 
by joy or universal welfare growing out of righteous- 
ness and peace, — all three, righteousness, peace and 
joy — the spontaneous fruit of holiness, that is, 
healthfulness of spirit. 

Hobe 

April Twenty-fifth 
The body is the temple of a holy spirit which we 
have from God, whose offspring we are. To use our 
ears and eyes to receive impressions of truth and 
purity — impressions that will fit us for service; to 
make our words the expression of a real life of the 
spirit and a minister to the real life of others; to put 
our hand with energy to what work Providence puts 
in our way; to keep on our way undaunted by any 
fear, unhalted by any disaster; to make our appe- 
tites and passions the servants, not the master, of 
the soul ; to people our imagination with ideals which 
will inspire to higher and holier living; to recognize 
the authority of conscience as a lawgiver; and to 
make the life and teachings of Jesus Christ the stand- 
ard for our conscience; to look at the things which 
are unseen and eternal as well as at the things which 
are seen and temporal; to use the reason to correct 
the errors of our vision, not as a substitute for it; to 
regard the welfare of our neighbor as we regard 
our own; and to make the progress and prosperity 
of God's work in the world our supreme and final 
concern, the secret of an unquenchable enthusiasm 
and the reservoir of an inexhaustible strength — 
this is religion. 

106 



ICotoe 

April Twenty-sixth 

Love is the great central, essential fact of God's 
nature. God is love. All moral attributes are but 
inflections of love, as all colors are but rays of the 
pure sunlight. Justice is love looking upon the 
wronged and considering what it can and ought to 
do to right them. Mercy is love looking upon the 
wrong-doer and considering what it can do to cure 
him. Pity is love looking upon suffering and con- 
sidering what it can do for its relief. Sympathy or 
compassion — one word is derived from the Greek, 
the other from the Latin — is love entering into the 
life of another and sharing it with him ; it is experienc- 
ing with another; it is love rejoicing with those that 
rejoice, and weeping with those that weep. 

To condemn a man, and at the same time love 
him, — that is the highest exhibition of conscience 
and love. It is very hard for a man who is the soul 
of truth to love a liar. It is very hard for a business 
man who is the soul of honor to love a fraudulent 
bankrupt. It is very hard for an industrious man to 
love a lazy one. It is well-nigh impossible for a 
thrifty New England housewife to love a shiftless 
woman. Christ loved the men and women against 
whom his conscience rose in indignation. His con- 
science was alive with indignation, and his heart was 
alive with love at the same time. 



107 



Cfcrtet's £ato of Jlotoe 

April Twenty-seventh 
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, and its 
concurrent law, Do unto others as you would have 
others do unto you, give merely the law of Jewish 
justice. It is not the standard of Christian life. 
When Jesus came to tell his own disciples what his 
ideal of life was, he gave them a very different ideal. 
What he said was this : "A new commandment 
give I unto you, that you love one another; " — if 
he had stopped there, there would have been nothing 
new. Fifteen centuries before, Moses had given the 
command to love one another; but Jesus went on: 

— "as I have loved you, that you also love one an- 
other." That was what was new in the command- 
ment. Jesus Christ by his whole life from Bethle- 
hem to Calvary gave a new meaning to life; and 
then, having unfolded that new definition by three 
years of unparalleled suffering, he cast it before the 
world, and said, That is what God means by love: 
Love one another as I have loved you. 

Justice, — that is the key-word of Judaism; Love, — 
that is the key-word of Christianity. Equality, 

— that is the key- word of Judaism; Self-sacrifice, — 
that is the key-word of Christian living. 

Uobe 

April Twenty-eighth 
Love is the profoundest craving of the human 
soul; there is no hunger like heart hunger, and God 

108 



hungers for the love of his children with a yearning 
of which all paternal and maternal heart hunger is 
but a shadow and a hint. 

Love is the golden key that admits the soul to 
sacred communion with Christ. The doors of the 
Church may open to other keys, but the door to 
Christ's heart opens to this, and this alone. 

Love and trust are greater deterrents from wrong- 
doing than fear; men are more easily weaned from 
sinful courses by spiritual sympathy than by inflicted 
penalty, more liars have been cured of falsehood by 
implicit confidence than were ever cured by the rod; 
love casts hate out of the human soul, and wrath and 
bitterness intrench it there. 

There is no wrath like the wrath of love. But 
it is not irritable, cross, snappish. It punishes, but it 
is not vexed; it is angry, but it is not impatient; it 
rebukes, but it never scolds. 



Hotoe 

April Twenty-ninth 

Love is the " secret of Jesus." It was this which 
sent him into the world, which prompted all his 
actions, which constrained Paul, which never fails 
in its arduous task, and, recognized or not, is the 
source of every philanthropic and self-denying effort 
which has ever blessed mankind. . . . 

109 



Love envieth not: it has no mean, miserable de- 
sire to pull another down to its own level; will not 
climb to preferment on the shoulders of others; can- 
not intrigue. 

Three things abide forever: faith, or the vision of 
God; hope, or the desire for God; love, or oneness 
with God. But the greatest of these is love. 

Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up: the 
loving soul never rolls its own reputation over and 
over like a sweet morsel; never plumes itself before 
its own imagination; never looks at itself in the 
pleasure of pride, or puts itself where others may look 
and admire. 

Love doth not behave itself unseemly: it is not 
careless and inconsiderate; love is the only true 
etiquette. 

Love beareth all things; and this is the threefold 
secret of its bearing: it trusteth all things; would 
rather be a thousand times deceived than cherish a 
suspicious and distrustful spirit; when it can trust 
no longer, it hopeth all things, still looking for some 
turn that shall bring good out of evil; and when it 
can neither trust nor hope, it endureth all things. 
O sacred love! thou art indeed more eloquent than 
speech, wiser than knowledge, more wonderful than 
the mystic's faith, a greater gift than all giving, and 
the only true martyr spirit. 



110 



Hofce 

April Thirtieth 

Christ brings men and women together in one 
household of faith. He does not ask that they think 
alike; nor that they worship alike; nor that they 
act alike; but that they love alike. Some of my 
brethren in the ministry say that we must be grounded 
in our creeds; but when I turn to the New Testa- 
ment, what I find is, " rooted and grounded in love," 
not in creed. The bond that binds us all together 
and makes us one great brotherhood is love, which 
is the bond of perfectness. 

God puts forth all things that through them he 
may speak his love. Creation is gift-giving. Be- 
cause it is his nature to be putting forth he made all 
the world for us and such as we are. He makes it 
as a man builds a house and gives it to his bride or to 
his child to live in. It is the testimony of his love. 

Hobe 

May First 

He spoke with love. Reformers and preachers 
had supposed that men would respond to fear or to 
authority; prophets had spoken of law, thundering; 
prophets had spoken with threats, frightening; 
Christ spoke of mercy and of love, and, lo! where 
one man would respond to fear, a hundred sprang 
up answering to love. Love was in their hearts, 
and they knew it not; and other men knew it not; 

111 



but when he spoke the language of love their hearts 
answered. More men have responded, a thousand- 
fold, I suppose, to the Parable of the Prodigal Son, 
which is but the word of love, than ever responded 
to threat of penalty. For this was characteristic 
of Christ, that he saw in men the faith and the hope 
and the love, as the sun sees the life in the seed, as 
the skilled chemist sees the writing, invisible, on the 
parchment, and then made men themselves see what 
was dormant within them. He brought the life and 
the immortality in man to light. 

The parable of the Prodigal Son is Christ's inter- 
pretation of the Gospel. Any interpretation that is 
inconsistent with that parable may safely be rejected. 
That parable certainly implies that any one who has 
done wrong, and by his wrong-doing has separated 
himself from his Father, may return and be recon- 
ciled to his Father, and by his Father's love may be 
recovered to himself, without any other condition 
than a sincere sorrow for, and practical abandonment 
of, his wrong-doing, and a sincere desire for a renewal 
of filial relations with his Father in his Father's 
home. 

©er ittomtment 

May Second 

She built it herself; and yet she did not know that 
she had a monument. She lived in it; but she did 
not know that it existed. 

She never dreamed that she was great; or that 
she was specially useful; or that she had achieved 

112 



anything worth living for. . . . She did not think 
about herself. Self-consciousness would have de- 
stroyed her monument. 

Her monument was her home. It grew up quietly, , 
as quietly as a flower grows; and no one knew, she ( 
did not know herself, how much she had done to tend 
and water and train it. Her husband had absolute 
trust in her. He earned the money, she expended 
it. And as she put as much thought into her ex- 
penditure as he put into his earning, each dollar was 
doubled in the expending. She had inherited that 
mysterious faculty which we call taste; and she 
cultivated it with fidelity. . . . Putting her own per- 
sonality into her home, thus making every room 
and almost every article of furniture speak of her, 
she had the gift to draw out from every guest his 
personality and make him at home and so make him 
his truest and best self. . . . Her home was hospi- 
table because her heart was large; and any one was 
her friend to whom she could minister. But her 
heart was like the old Jewish Temple — strangers 
only came into the court of the Gentiles, friends into 
an inner court; her husband and her children found 
a court still nearer her heart of hearts ; yet even they 
knew that there was a Holy of Holies which she kept 
for her God, and they loved and revered her the more 
for it. 

Cfje 3Baug!)ter 

May Third 

She does not believe in the saying, " Every one 
must live his own life." She believes in the saying, 

113 



" We are members one of another." Rather, she 
does believe that every one must live his own life, 
but she also believes that her life is but one of several 
strands braided together. So each wire in the rope 
that holds the suspension bridge must bear its own 
share of the common burden; but it can do so only 
as it shares that burden with the other strands. She 
lives her own life, but that is the life of a sister to her 
brothers and a daughter to her parents. 

Almost from her babyhood she is the companion 
of her mother; she early grows to be her mother's 
confidant. It is her childish pride to be her mother's 
helper, to do the things her mother does. She under- 
stands the Roman Catholic's veneration for the Vir- 
gin Mary; her mother is her Madonna. As she 
grows into early womanhood she grows into a clearer 
comprehension of what the home is: a rest and 
refuge from the strenuous and stormy life outside, 
and a tonic to virtue and an inspiration to vigor in 
that life. To make home pure and wholesome, so 
to minister in it that it shall provide for her brothers 
as free an atmosphere as the club, and a better table 
and a jollier companionship — this is her growing 
ambition. She gradually assumes a share in her 
mother's responsibilities as well as in her mother's 
work, and becomes the counselor of her on whose 
counsels she once so implicitly depended. As she 
goes to school, and perhaps to college, their lives 
diverge but their affections are not weakened. New 
vistas open before her which her mother never saw, 
new impulses she experiences which her mother never 
experienced. She welcomes them. But they do 

114 



not separate her from her mother. And because 
she still respects convictions of her mother which she 
no longer possesses, her mother respects the convic- 
tions of her daughter which she never possessed. 

Wht JSaugfcter 

May Fourth 

The companion and confidant of her mother, she 
becomes comrade to her father. Neither is conscious 
of the process. She does not believe that business and 
politics are dull, nor does she think that nothing is 
worth listening to which she does not instantly under- 
stand. She listens, at first with an amused, later 
with an eager interest, to the table-talk of her father 
and his visitors. And from their conversation she 
learns in time more of banking or trade or politics or 
law or pedagogy or theology than some of her com- 
panions learn from the lecturers and text-books in 
their schools. Some day she surprises her father 
with a question which shows how much unconscious 
training her womanly insight has had — and there- 
after father and daughter are intellectual comrades. 
Thus, while from her school or college the daughter 
brings to the home the reflection and the impulses 
nf a larger life than the home knows, she is getting 
from the home the influence of a more practical fife 
than the school or college knows. She receives by 
contributing and contributes by receiving. . . . Father, 
mother, brother, sister has lived each his own life; 
but because they have been members one of another, 
the fife of the home is larger and richer than any one 

115 



alone could have made it. Yes! larger and richer 
than all combined could have made it, if each had 
not brought into it some experience which no other 
one had to bring. 

Cfje JSrfoe 

May Fifth 

She has not fallen in love. Love has been a flight, 
not a fall. She has risen into a new life; in her is 
born a new experience. 

Perhaps it has come suddenly, with a rush which 
has overwhelmed her with its tumultuous surprise. 
Perhaps it has grown gradually, so gradually that 
she has been quite unconscious of its advent until 
it has taken complete possession of her. As the 
water lily bursts open the moment the sun strikes 
upon it, and the rose turns from bud to blossom so 
gradually that the closest observation discerns no 
movement in the petals, so some souls bloom in- 
stantly when love touches them with its sunbeam, 
and others, unconscious and unobserved, pass from 
girlhood to womanhood. In either case it is love 
that works the miracle. 

When the wedding-day comes she has no desire to 
omit from the service the promise to obey. He does 
not care for it, but she does. She wishes, not to 
submit a reluctant will to his, but to make his will her 
own. . . . She believes in Paul's saying, which she 
never understood before: " Wives, submit yourselves 
unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the 
husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the 

116 



head of the church." This loyalty, this self-devotion 
gives her a great delight. She knows as she has 
never known before the meaning of the words con- 
secration, devotion, sacrifice. She believes, too, in 
that other word of Paul: " Husbands, love your 
wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave 
himself for it." She believes her bridegroom does so 
love, and to his love she surrenders herself with a 
great gladness. And all through the marriage ser- 
vice her heart is softly saying to itself : "Whither 
thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I will 
lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God 
my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will 
I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if 
aught but death part thee and me." 

Btfje Wife 

May Sixth 

She laughs at the cynical reformer who tells her 
that she has bartered away her independence for her 
board and clothes. Economic independence has no 
charms for her; she has no interest in the problem 
how the married woman is to maintain it. The 
assertion that she has no will of her own and no judg- 
ment of her own would roil her were it not for her 
happy sense of humor. Thanks to that, it amuses 
her. 

Her will was never so strong as it is now, and every 
day of her happy married life strengthens it. But 
her one dominating desire is, not to be independent, 
but to be dependent on the man she loves. Her one 

117 



will is to help him fulfil the purpose of his life, and, 

fulfilling, to make it ever a nobler and yet nobler 

purpose. . . . Her supreme desire is to make his life 

noble — nobler than he ever dreamed of making it. 

His life? No! Their life. For their life is one and 

she has 

" Set herself to man 
Like perfect music unto noble words." 

For this very reason she preserves her independence 
of thought the more jealously, that she may be his 
wise counselor. She looks at life through a different 
window. In the pure light of the home the problems 
seem other than they seem in the murky light of the 
street. She is no echo of his mind, no soft amen to 
his oracular opinions. Her personal desires are 
subdued to the one desire to make their joint life a 
nobler one; but because they are so subdued, her 
will is the more tenacious and her judgment the more 
clear and calm. 

Their judgments do not always agree, but their 
wills never clash. 

QHje Witt 

May Seventh 

She sees the better behind the worser self, and in 
the sunshine of her appreciation all his hidden virtues 
begin to grow and all the budding faculties to blos- 
som. Her faith in him cures him of self-distrust and 
inspires him with self-confidence. In time of dis- 
aster her courage shames his fears, and her buoyant 
spirits hearten him. In time of temptation her clear 
vision of righteousness clarifies his vision, and her 

118 



strong faith in the triumph of righteousness arms 
him for battle and takes the sting from apparent 
defeat. If he is sometimes infected by the motto 
of the street, " Nothing succeeds like success," her 
spirit responds, " Failure in a noble endeavor is 
better than ignoble success." And he feels the truth 
of the words which she is careful not to utter. 

So these two, united by one purpose, animated by 
one spirit, grow ever into a closer unity, — preserv- 
ing ever their separate personalities, yet ever becom- 
ing more and more one person. To serve him and 
deserve his reverencing love is her supreme desire: 
this is to her what applause is to the actor, wealth 
to the merchant, office to the politician. Love is 
her success. Only her husband can crown her — 
and he does. For she has made herself his wisest 
counselor, his supreme inspiration, the ideal of his 
imagination, and the idol of his affections; and as 
he looks back along the life which they have lived 
together, he says, with no thought of irreverence, 
" By the grace of my wife, I am what I am." 

®fje ifHotfter 

May Eighth 
She cannot understand how any woman should 
not want children, to be her companions and to trust 
in her, love her, reverence her; children whom she 
may nurse, protect, teach, guide, govern, mold into 
manhood and womanhood. To have this possession 
has been her dream ever since with alternate tender- 
ness and severity she ruled her dolls. The hoped- 

119 



for hour has come. She welcomes it with a gladsome 
awe. As she prepares to enter the unknown expe- 
rience of motherhood, her heart is stirred, but more 
deeply, with all the glad apprehension with which 
she entered married life as bride. She goes to that 
mystic gateway which opens into the infinite beyond, 
and receives into her keeping God's gift of a little 
child. She wonders at the Father's confidence in 
her, wonders that He dares to trust so sacred a task 
to her care. But one child is not enough. She 
wishes a brood. The Oriental passion of mother- 
hood possesses her. Another child is given to her, 
a third, a fourth. They cluster about her, sharing 
with each other and with her their songs and their 
sorrows, their toils and their sports. The Holy 
Family has reappeared again. No old master ever 
painted such a group; no Raphael ever interpreted, 
no painter could interpret, her holy gladness. 

®fje jWotfjer 

May Ninth 
New joys usurp the old ones in her life. She did 
enjoy music; now to her the sweetest songs are the 
lullabys she sings to her own babe. She did enjoy 
literature; now the best literature is the stories she 
reads to her children. No society is to her so de- 
lightful as the society which they afford her. . . . 
She detects her own faults reappearing in her children, 
and sets herself to change the pattern which they are 
unconsciously following. She quickly learns to dis- 
tinguish between the faults of immaturity, which 

120 



time and growth will cure, and the vices which if 
uncorrected will grow with her children's growth 
and strengthen with their strength. The little van- 
ities and little tyrannies which amuse the careless 
visitor cause her no amusement. They cause her 
much meditation. So to guide, so to govern, that 
all her guiding, all her governing shall be training, 
is her problem. For she sees that she must form 
habits of life; she knows that action oft repeated 
becomes a habit, and habit long continued becomes 
a second nature. How to make that second nature 
what she will wish it to be when her boys go out 
from her tuition to live their own self-governed lives, 
when her girls go out from their home to make homes 
for other husbands and other children, is her prob- 
lem, never solved but always in process of solution. 
Her wish is, not that they shall have no burdens, but 
that they shall be strong to bear them; not that 
they shall have no tasks, but that they shall be 
patient to fulfil them. She wishes for them, not the 
pleasures of an easy life, but the joys of a useful one. 
She knows that they are born into a world of law, 
and that the first lesson they must learn is obedience. 
Obedience therefore she requires with a steadiness 
of unrelenting purpose which quickly secures their 
respecting loyalty and wins for her a love that is also 
reverence. 

tEfte iUotfter 

May Tenth 
She not only loves her children, she respects them. 
They have wills, tastes, thoughts, judgments of 

121 



their own, and this is as she wishes it to be. She 
distinguishes clearly between counsel and command: 
command must be obeyed; counsel may be disre- 
garded without rebuke and without loss of favor. 
She wishes her boys to be manly boys, and she knows 
that they cannot be manly boys if they are guarded 
from all peril. She welcomes for them opportuni- 
ties for adventure foreign to her own tastes — ath- 
letic sports, swimming, boating, fishing, hunting. 
If she is anxious for their safety, if she sees them 
depart on each new adventurous errand with fore- 
boding and welcomes them home from each expedi- 
tion with a new sense of danger passed, she success- 
fully hides her anxieties from them. Her own cour- 
age inspires them to do and to dare. . . . And as 
the life of her children grows and widens, her life 
grows and widens also. In the country she rides on 
the sled down the long hill, steers the boat which 
the children row, sits by, knitting with nimble fingers, 
while they fish, joins on equal terms in their picnic 
or their camp. And when the excursions take a 
wider range, while she cannot accompany them, no 
one is more eager to provide their camp equipment 
and no one more interested to hear the tale of each 
adventure when they return. When college days 
come, she helps to furnish the young collegian's room 
according to the young collegian's taste. A weekly 
interchange of letters, which he sometimes thinks 
himself too busy to write, but which no preoccupation 
can prevent her from writing, keeps him linked to 
his home. ... So, by entering into her children's 
life with seeming abandon, she has, undeliberately 

122 



and all the more effectively, lifted them up to share 
in hers. 

tCfje ifflotfjer 

May Eleventh 

When at last the time comes for them to marry 
and make their own homes, she is glad with their 
gladness. She asks no recognition for herself, asks 
only leave to do what they will permit to make the 
wedding-day for them as joyous as was her wedding- 
day a quarter of a century ago. When her neighbors 
condole with her because her children are departing, 
she replies, " I have not lost a son, I have gained a 
daughter." She counts not the absentees but the 
additions to her home circle. Of sons-in-law and 
daughters-in-law she will not hear. They are sons- 
in-love and daughters-in-love, she says; and they 
find room in her heart by the side of her own chil- 
dren. For her the vision of motherhood is completed, 
but not its joys. " Her children rise up and call 
her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her." 

Qtfje housekeeper 

May Twelfth 

Her servants gradually, very gradually, imbibe 
the spirit of their mistress. For she is more than 
mistress to her servants. She believes with Queen 
Victoria that a good servant is a good friend. If a 
servant refuses to become a friend and insists on re- 
maining a bit of animated machinery, they part as 
soon as the housekeeper has become convinced that 

123 



no friendly bond is possible between them. On 
the other hand, if the servant be loyal to the home, 
interested in her work, friend to her mistress and to 
the household, and willing to learn, the mistress has 
unfailing patience in teaching. . . . 

The doors of her home are always open to the 
friends of her husband and of her children. She is 
glad to see them and welcomes them right cordially 
to what she has to give. But she never strains en- 
deavor to give them something better than she gives 
her own. She has not two standards, one for her 
family, another for the stranger. . . . Her guests 
feel a charm in the free air of her home, which they 
do not feel in that of homes that are kept with more 
military precision. If she has not a reputation 
among women of being a model housekeeper, she 
has the reputation among men of having a model 
home. . . . She knows that her husband and her 
children are home-lovers and she is content. For 
love, not ambition, is the inspiration of her life and 
the reward of her endeavors. 

W$t $ijtlantfjropfet 

May Thirteenth 
She believes that charity begins at home, but she 
does not believe that it ends there. Her first, her 
chief interests are in the home ; but they are not her 
sole interests. Whatever concerns humanity con- 
cerns her. Her children are presently going to take 
part in the world's affairs, and if they are not to grow 
away from her she must now have an intelligent 

124 



interest in what will presently interest them. If 
they are to be trained to be intelligent in their inter- 
est, and high-minded in their purpose, it is in their 
home that they must receive the training. So she 
conscientiously goes out from her home, to mix in 
the life of her village, or her city, and to bring back 
from these excursions the broader outlook and the 
larger enthusiasms which they give to her. . . . 
She is interested in every good work, but she does not 
take part in every good work. She elects one, or 
two, or three forms of public service. With these 
she acquaints herself; the rest she passes by; not 
because she does not care, but because she rightly 
judges that it is better to do a few things thoroughly 
than many things superficially. . . . Catholic in 
spirit as well as conciliatory in method, she is ready 
to work with any one who will work with her for the 
betterment of the ignorant or the succor of the suf- 
fering. . . . The only persons she cannot work with 
are the self-seeking, who make philanthropy a cover 
for their vanity or their ambition. She is keen to 
see through all false pretense and quick to hate it. 
Neither with deception nor with self-deception is she 
conciliatory. 

Wfyt g>amt 

May Fourteenth 
She is no recluse. True! to follow Christ is some- 
times to go away and be alone. These secret hours 
she has, and their meaning no one knows but herself. 
Into this Holy of Holies of her life not even her hus- 
band or her children can enter; and they reverence 

125 



and love her the more for this her one experience of 
exclusiveness. But these hours of separation are 
hours of preparation. . . . She has no use for the 
piety which does not send the praying soul forth to 
give succor to those that are without. . . . She can 
worship with any congregation if the congregation is 
genuine, and with no congregation that is not. . . . 
What attracts her to church is not the intellectual 
ability of the preacher or the aesthetic quality of the 
worship, but the opportunity for service. She often 
quotes the saying, " The church is the preacher's 
force, not his field." She believes that it is a working 
organization, and that is to her the best church which 
does the best work. 

Her religion is all summed up in three words : Love, 
Service, Sacrifice. She is a saint, not because she is a 
scholar in theology, a mystic in feeling, or a recluse in 
society, but because in fellowship with God and in 
faith in Jesus Christ his Son, she devotes herself with 
singleness of purpose, in the home and in the church, 
in her domestic activities and her social philan- 
thropies, to the service of her husband, her children, 
and her neighbors. Whomsoever she can help by 
word or deed she counts her neighbor. 



tEfje <©ranbmotf)er 

May Fifteenth 

She does not fall into the sere and yellow leaf. No 
faded glory hers; no dismantling of the home as the 
time draws near when the tenant will leave it. Not 

126 



in her girlhood, not in her bridehood, was she more 
delicate and dainty. ... As her children have grown 
up and entered into their several professions, she has 
accompanied them. Whatever touches their life 
touches hers, whatever interests them interests her. 
If she cannot enter into their fields, she can at least 
come to the fence and look over. . . . 

To the grandchildren her home is " Grandmamma's 
house.' ' To go there is a coveted reward for good 
behavior; to be denied is a severe penalty. In her 
possession are some toys of her childhood; to be per- 
mitted to play with these is a distinguished honor. 
She has some reminiscences of her childhood which 
are better than fairy stories. But it is not the toys, 
nor yet the stories, which make the visit to Grand- 
mamma's house a treat; it is the atmosphere. 



tCfje ^ranbntottjer 

May Sixteenth 

She is an invalid. But her best friends do not 
know it; she declines to know it herself. . . . She 
accepts the counsel and lives under the limitations 
set for her; but within those limitations she lives as 
cheerfully and as freely as if her liberties knew no 
bounds. . . . She is fond of telling the story of the 
aged patriarch, who, hobbling along the sidewalk 
resting on his cane, replied to the neighbor's " How 
do you do this morning? " with, " My house is get- 
ting rather out of repair, but I myself was never in 
better health." 

127 



So the end draws daily nearer, and no one guesses 
it except herself. Her life is not ebbing away, it is 
at its flood. She has trained herself in the habit of 
immortality, the habit of looking, not at the things 
which are seen and are transitory, but at the things 
which are not seen and are eternal. Her anticipatory 
ambitions for her children and her grandchildren are 
boundless, and the hopes for herself which made 
radiant the dawn of her life seem dim beside the 
higher hopes for her loved ones which fill life's even- 
tide with sunshine. Her husband and herself are 
lovers still; the honeymoon has never set, never even 
waned; and to his love is added that of those whom 
God has given to her. She thinks to live naturally 
is the best preparation for dying peacefully; rarely, 
therefore; does she al :>w herself to forecast the com- 
ing day. When she does, not with dread but with a 
solemn gladness she looks forward to emancipation 
from the irksome bonds of the fettering body and to 
embarkation for that unknown continent where 
many colonists are already gathered to give her 
greeting. Faith, hope, love — these are life. And 
her faith was never so clear, for her heart was never 
so pure; her hopes were never so great, for expe- 
rience has enlarged them; and her love was never so 
rich, for God, who is love, has been her life Companion. 

Slone 

May Seventeenth 
You have taken your last look at the dear face. 
You are more certain than ever of that of which 

128 



you were always certain, — that God's child shares 
his Father's immortality. For kindly death has 
smoothed out the creases from her brow, and save for 
the gray hair, she looks as young, lying there asleep, 
as when you took her a bride from her father's house. 
You recall Paul's counsel of comfort: " Our light 
affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us 
a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; 
while we look not at the things which are seen, but 
at the things which are not seen : for the things which 
are seen are temporal; but the things which are not 
seen are eternal." . . . Unseen, she is still your com- 
panion; unheard, she is still your inspiration. Never 
did you understand her so well as you understand 
her now; never did she so well understand you, — 
your love, your gratitude. For now you know that 
she has made you what you are. By attributing 
to you powers, she has created them; by imputing 
to you virtues, she has inspired them. Home builder, 
because builder of her children, builder of her hus- 
band, and so, all unconsciously, builder of herself. 
. . . The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death, 
and for you already Death is destroyed by Love 
that endureth forever. As you sit in that radiant 
chamber, in that loneliness which is the divinest 
companionship, with Faith that sees, Hope that 
anticipates, and Love that cheers, you say aloud, 
and you think she understands you: " Death is 
swallowed up in Victory." 



129 



SDfje ^ebreto Sbeal of tfre Jfamtlp 

May Eighteenth 

With the [Hebrew] ideal of womanhood there went 
an ideal of marriage as a sacred sacrament binding 
husband and wife together in an indissoluble bond. 
And wherever these two went, there went also the 
ideal of complete comradeship ; for these three Hebrew 
ideals are really one in three, a sacred trinity of love: 
man and woman created one; man and woman 
created to be comrades; and man and woman united 
by marriage in an indissoluble bond. . . . Wherever 
paganism dominated, woman was dishonored and 
marriage was reduced to a commercial partnership. 
Wherever Christianity dominated, woman was glori- 
fied and marriage was treated as a sacrament. . . . 
Marriage is not a partnership; it is not a civil con- 
tract; it is a divine order; indissoluble save for the 
one disloyalty which does by necessity destroy the 
family. The home is the basic organization on which 
both Church and State are founded, for which both 
Church and State exist. The rearing and training 
of children is the end of life, which alone gives it 
significance. ... In this work of rearing and training 
children woman is supreme, made so by her divine 
equipment, and in it protected and provided by her 
mate. Neither master and servant nor competitors 
and rivals, but comrades, neither independent of the 
other, neither complete without the other, each made 
for the other, are man and woman in the world's 
great work, which is the creation of children of God. 



130 



Carriage 

May Nineteenth 

The basis of marriage is the ordinance of God. 
Not written in a book, though the Book interprets it; 
not authoritatively declared by Jesus Christ, though 
Jesus Christ did recognize and declare it; but written 
in the constitution of things; in the nature of man 
and woman; in the fact that God created them male 
and female; created them to marry, and set them in 
families, and gave them the sacred trust of children, 
and made the Church, the State, industry, life, all 
welfare, depend on their fidelity to one another, for 
richer and for poorer, for better and for worse; till 
death do them part. Whoever endeavors to weaken 
this bond of loyal fidelity, by word or example, sets 
himself not merely against the authority of Jesus 
Christ and of the Bible; he sets himself against the 
highest moral and spiritual instincts of mankind, 
and does what little lies in his power — happily not 
much — to undermine the very foundations of society, 
to dissolve it into the anomaly of individualism; 
to substitute lust for love, and self-indulgence for 
patient fidelity, and to degrade humanity to the 
plane of the brute creation. 

ifiarrtage 

May Twentieth 

Marriage is not dissoluble because love is dead. 
The mere cessation of sympathy no more annuls 
marriage than it annuls any other family relation. 

131 



It is very desirable that the son should reverence the 
father, and that the father should be able to sym- 
pathize with the son. But the son does not cease to 
be a son because the father is unworthy of reverence, 
nor does the father cease to be a father because he is 
unable to sympathize with his son. So it is of the 
utmost moment that husband and wife love and 
honor each other; but they do not cease to be hus- 
band and wife because they cannot love and honor. 
Love and honor make the result of the marriage 
blessed, but they do not constitute the relation. 

When we begin to suppose that love requires no 
patience, no forbearance, no long-suffering; that 
love may simply seek its own, and not another's 
welfare; that when any friction comes into the 
household, the remedy is to take the machine to 
pieces and make a new machine in the place of it, 
— we are going back to the old paganism in Rome, 
which declared that marriage is simply a partnership 
made at pleasure, and to be dissolved at pleasure. 
The fundamental teaching of Christ on this subject 
is that marriage is not a partnership, and cannot be 
dissolved as are other partnerships; that it is a 
divine order, and on its permanence the permanence 
of society depends. Whatever threatens the family, 
threatens society at the foundation. 

JHarrtage 

May Twenty-first 

One cause, I am persuaded, for the frequent home 
wrecks in America is that the woman does not think 

132 



that the business of home-building calls for the ex- 
ercise of all her talents; so the work which she has 
undertaken she leaves to be carried on by uninspired 
and unwatched underlings, and goes herself outside 
to find something to do which she thinks worth while. 
She does not do with her might what her hands find 
to do under her own roof. 

The remedy for connubial infelicity is not separa- 
tion, it is closer union; it is the love which beareth 
all things, trusteth all things, hopeth all things, en- 
dureth all things; the love which counts another's 
fault as his burden, and bears it for him; the love 
which is never suspicious, but trusting and confid- 
ing, and, when confidence is wronged and trust is 
no longer possible, still hopes: and, when hope long 
deferred makes the heart sick, still endures; a love 
like the love of Christ, who, having loved his own, 
loved them unto the end. 

Jflarriage 

May Twenty-second 
The power to perceive the invisible inspires all 
true reform. Those who would reform marriage by 
turning it into a commercial partnership which 
either partner may dissolve at pleasure are blind. 
They cannot see love, which is the perfect bond, nor 
comprehend the obligations which it involves, nor 
the duties which it entails, nor the power which 
endows it with patience and enables it to suffer long 
and still be kind. Love binds the world of men to- 
gether as gravitation binds together the world of 

133 



things. Every lover, from the babe in the cradle to 
the grandmother who rocks it, looks at and in some 
measure comprehends the love which no one ever 
saw and no one can ever measure. 

The more husband and wife can counsel with one 
another, and the less they debate with one another, 
the better. 

Cftrtet'g Hato of fte Jfamtlp 

May Twenty-third 
There is a feminism which slights marriage, en- 
courages divorce, discourages childbirth, gives over 
the children to nursery maids, and abandons the 
home for the hotel and the boarding-house, under 
the dangerous delusion that thus women will be free 
to reform the state, the prisons, the industries, the 
schools, the churches. This feminism is fatal to all 
reform. There is also a feminism which seeks for 
women a better education and the full liberty of a 
larger life that they may carry out into government, 
the prisons, the industries, the schools, the churches, 
that liberty, justice, fair dealing, learning applied to 
life, and the reverence of love which in the past have 
been nurtured in the home, woman's peculiar king- 
dom. That feminism has in it the promise of all 
ethical and spiritual progress. 

I cannot look with enthusiasm upon the new era 
in which women are rushing into every kind of em- 
ployment, and lowering the wages of men by doing 
men's work. I would not close the door against them, 

134 



nor shut them out from any vocation; I would give 
them the largest liberty. But men, with their strong 
arms, ought to fight life's battles and win life's bread, 
and leave the women free from the burden of bread- 
winning and battling, that they may minister to the 
higher life of faith and hope and love. Nor will our 
industrial situation be what it ought to be, until 
every faithful husband and father can earn enough 
for his wife and children, without calling them to 
labor by his side in the mine, the mill, the shop, or 
the office. 

Cfjrfat'* Hato of tfje jfamilp 

May Twenty-fourth 

Life is itself a preparation for life, a long schooling, 
and death a graduation. ... In this process woman 
is the creator of life. She is physiologically its creator. 
She is in the order of nature the custodian of the 
infant in all the earlier stages of its existence. She is 
the one who feeds and nurses and leads and trains 
and educates it. And while she is thus absorbed in 
the highest and divinest ministry, in serving the 
very end of fife itself, the man is the bread-winner 
and protector. He goes out to wrest from nature 
food for the supply of the family. If enemies attack 
it from without, he arises to defend it from assault. 
If criminals by violence or by fraud endeavor to rob 
it of its sustenance, he is its natural guardian from the 
wrongdoer. His influence is not unneeded in the 
training of the children, but it is incidental and 
secondary; it must be incidental and secondary, 

135 



because, if mother and child are to be fed, sheltered, 
and protected, he must be, during most of the hours 
of the day, away from home. 



©befcience in tfje 3#ome 

May Twenty-fifth 

Education begins at the cradle. The first educator 
is the mother. The first lesson to be taught is obe- 
dience. . . . 

We are born into a world of law. We cannot do 
as we please. . . . Obedience to law is the foundation 
of all civilization, material, intellectual, social, spir- 
itual. . . . An indulgent mother is a cruel mother. 
She is sending out her child unprepared for the re- 
straints of law, which will be enforced by seemingly 
cruel penalties. If she were wise and strong, she 
would temper law to the child's capacity. We try 
to put up a gate at Ellis Island to keep the Anar- 
chists out; we ought to put it up in our nurseries. 
There our children are being taught lawlessness; 
taught that they may obey or not obey, as they will; 
there laws are given to them, and then, when dis- 
obeyed, left unenforced. The babe in the cradle 
readily understands whether or not he must obey. 
The sooner he learns that he must, the sooner he is 
fitted for a self-governing member of a self-governing 
community, the sooner he is fitted for a happy life 
in the world. 



136 



$arente 

May Twenty-sixth 

The little child is put into the family. For what? 
That we may take him as our children take their 
doll-babies for their amusement? I think fathers 
sometimes believe so; though mothers rarely do. 
That we may play with him and get amusement out 
of him and enjoy him, and by and by get cross be- 
cause he does not please us? or that we may make a 
bookkeeper out of him, or a mechanic, or a merchant, 
or a lawyer, or a doctor, or a preacher? No, for 
none of these things — neither that we may get 
amusement out of him or give amusement to him, 
nor that we may make this, that, or the other specific 
thing in him, but that we may make manhood out of 
him; and the manhood wrought in the boy and the 
womanhood wrought in the girl is the process be- 
stowed by father, bestowed by mother, upon the 
child; and all things in the family are tributary to 
this end. ... No father gives his child that which 
his child has a right to expect or demand, unless the 
father out of his own soul gives him energy, honor, 
truth, manhood. No mother gives her child that 
which the child has a right to expect, unless out of 
her own reservoired nature she pours into him purity 
and truth and love. 

If our children are not God's children in their 
babyhood, if they go away for the first years of their 
life, and need to be set right when they come to their 
teens, the fault is our own; it is not theirs nor God's. 

137 



If the vine has been allowed to trail on the earth 
and twine among the weeds and the thistles for five 
years or fifteen, of course it must be disentangled 
from its low associations before it can be started to 
climb on the trellis toward the sun; but this is the 
fault of the gardener, not of the vine. It is our 
business to train the vine heavenward from the 
moment the first shoot appears above the ground. 

JJarente 

May Twenty-seventh 

Do not worry about your children. Do not im- 
agine that child-nature is a manufacture, that the 
soul is a bit of repousse work and must be beaten into 
shape, or a casting to be run into a mold prepared 
beforehand for it. Child-nature is a growth. Give 
it a chance to grow. Give it food — that is, good 
books and good companions; exercise — that is, a 
healthful outlet to all its activities; rest — that is, 
a healthful letting alone, not perpetual criticism or 
perpetual counseling; and plenty of sunshine — 
that is, joyousness, merriment, a good time. Then 
trust something to nature — that is, to God. I am 
not advocating that happy-go-lucky method of 
parental no-discipline that leaves a child to grow up 
like a wild garden, uncultivated and uncared for. 
But often children are cultivated to death. The 
father takes no thought of his boy's companions, 
and is horrified to find that he has learned to swear; 
makes no vent for his native energies, and is surprised 
to find the steam threatening to burst the boiler; 

138 



hectors his boy with such perpetual and irritating 
restraints and regulations and " don't do this " and 
" do that/' that the boy has no quiet of mind in 
which to find himself and his bearings; provides no 
recreation for his boy; never thinks that sunniness is 
as essential to the soul as to the plant, and that all 
work and no play makes Jack not only a dull, but a 
stunted and misshapen boy. Give your boy the 
right conditions. 



May Twenty-eighth 
Our homes teach us much. We grow weary of the 
conflict of life and come back and open that door, 
and there the wife is trying to carry the husband's 
burden and the husband is trying to carry the wife's 
burden; there the children are seeing what they can 
do for the father and the mother, and the father and 
mother are seeing what they can do for the children; 
and life is joyous because life is love; and we look 
forward to the time when the law of the household 
will be the law of the city, the law of the nation, the 
law of the world. We have that hope. We have the 
purpose to achieve that hope. 

Troubled mother, do you not know that this little 
child is God's child? and that you are God's servant? 
Do you not know that you are no pilot, but only the 
helmsman, and that God is the pilot who tells you 
how to steer? 

139 



Every mother may be a Madonna, and every child 
is a Holy Child, bringing new lessons and a new 
ministry of love to the mother who looks through the 
eyes that look up to her and sees the Infinite that is 
flashed down from the skies into her keeping. 



Truth and justice — Wese are to be taught in the 
nursery before the child has gone out to the larger 
life of the schools. 

Taught? Yes! but teaching is not enough; 
trained. There are many people, I think, who 
imagine that the Bible says, " Govern a child in the 
way he should go, and when he is old he will not 
depart from it; " and they do govern a child in the 
way he should go, and as soon as he escapes from the 
authority he does depart from it. What the Bible 
says is, " Train up a child in the way he should go," 
and neither governing nor teaching is the same as 
training. Training is the production of habit. 
Actions oft repeated become a habit; habit long 
continued becomes a second nature. When you 
have trained your child in habits of justice and of 
truth, when you have formed in him the habit of 
telling the truth and the habit of acting justly, he 
will not depart from them, because he cannot depart 
from himself. 

The father and the mother have opportunities of 
training that the teacher does not have, if the father 

140 



and mother are willing to take the time and the 
trouble and the patience, and, above all, are the kind 
of parents they ought to be. For training does not 
come chiefly through lectures or exhortations, or 
laws enforced by penalty. It comes chiefly through 
the atmosphere of the home and through the example 
of the parents. If you want your child to love the 
truth, love it yourself; if you want your child to love 
justice and purity and simplicity and honesty and 
courage, love them yourself. You cannot by your 
teaching give your child that which you do not 
possess. 

Be what you wish your children to become. Live 
as you wish your children to live. By your life set 
before your children the ideal which you wish them 
to realize, and let them grow naturally into a manhood 
and womanhood like your own; and so into a knowl- 
edge of God, and obedience to God, and fellowship 
with God, because you know him, obey him, and live 
in fellowship with him. And live yourself in such 
sympathetic companionship with your children that 
when their religious difficulties arise they will bring 
them to you for light upon them, sure of your sym- 
pathy with them, sure also of the reality of your 
spiritual experience. 

May Thirtieth 
The builders of this Nation are not the men at 
Washington; the builders of this Nation are the 
fathers, the mothers, the teachers. To educate the 

141 -• .-. 



child from the cradle, to habituate him to obe- 
dience, to develop in him the sense of justice and of 
truthfulness, to train him to habits of a divine man- 
hood, then, with this training, to launch him into the 
school, and there, not to work against the school, 
as some mothers do, not to be indifferent to the 
school, as many fathers are, but to cooperate with 
the teacher, in support of her authority, in sympathy 
with her instruction, in aid of her work, and in that 
cooperation to connect all that teaching with the 
home and with the life, so that this child, growing to 
manhood, may learn how to support himself, to do 
his own thinking, to understand the thoughts of his 
neighbor, to live with that neighbor in harmony, in 
justice, righteousness, and fair dealing; to give the 
child splendid ideals beckoning him on, to give him 
the lessons of past history holding him in check, to 
give him the joy that comes through beauty, and to 
make all his teaching grow out of his life and fit him 
for his life — this is the work of education in a self- 
educating community preparing itself for self-govern- 
ment. 

education 

May Thirty-first 
The one thing we have to give to our children is the 
gift of a noble character. Babyhood passed, the 
child goes to school. For what? To learn Greek 
or Latin or mathematics or geography or history or 
reading or writing? What is the benefit of these 
things? The end of the school, as the end of the 

142 



family, is still to give character. And in selecting 
the school, if we are at all wise, we select that one in 
which there is some strong influence in the teacher, 
some power for good, some quality that can be be- 
stowed by his richer nature on the child's poorer 
one; and if we are at all wise we measure every 
element in the system of education by its power to 
develop qualities of character. 

The State ought to teach every boy and every girl 
the duty of, and give to every boy and every girl the 
capacity for, self-support. The first duty of a self- 
governing member of a self-governing community 
is not to be a beggar; his first duty is to put as much 
into the treasury of life as he takes out of it. . . . The 
end of education is the development of character; 
the test of character is capacity for service. 

Cbucatfon 

June First 

The function of manual training is to connect the 
brain with the hand, and thus show how to translate 
thoughts into deeds. 

In the second place, every self-governing member 
of a self-governing community ought to be taught to 
think for himself; ... if we want a democracy, we 
should educate our boys and girls to think for them- 
selves. 

In the third place, our boys and girls must be 
taught to understand the thoughts of other men 
whom they do not agree with, for they have to go 

143 



out into life and work with other men they do not 
agree with, and we cannot work with another effi- 
ciently unless we can understand him. We may 
differ from him, but we must understand him. Our 
boys and girls must be taught to be open-minded; 
the windows must be thrown open, and all thoughts 
and all teachings they must be ready to consider, 
weigh, and judge. 

Power to think for one's self, power to understand 
those one does not agree with — these two things 
are absolutely essential to peace, harmony, and 
cooperation in a self-educating and self-governing 
community. 

Cbutation 

June Second 

The object of education should not be to run all 
pupils into the same mold. The school should not 
be a foundry. The object should be to give to every 
pupil a chance to grow. The school should be a 
garden. Education, therefore, should prepare for 
life, which is itself the larger education. It should 
be adapted to the present conditions and the pro- 
spective needs of the pupil. The growing recognition 
of this truth has created optionalism in education, has 
added industrial training to academic education, has 
provided, as never before, for woman's education. 
To enjoy an opportunity for education is the right of 
every individual; to make that opportunity so varied 
as to meet the varied needs of the members is the 

144 



duty of society; to avail himself of the opportunity 
to make all of himself that he can make is the duty 
of every individual. 

Christ's Hatos of ILiit 

June Third 

I look and wait and hope for . . . the time when all 
little children will have their days for merry play, 
and all young men and maidens their opportunit}' 
for love, and all fathers and mothers their leisure 
hours for home and brain and rest and life, and we 
shall know that things are for us, and that to be tem- 
perate is to use all things to make better men, and 
to be intemperate is to use anything to make men 
worse. 

Youth is not the happiest time of life; old age is 
the happiest, if youth and manhood have been well 
spent. If I am to tell you how to grow old grace- 
fully, I must tell you at the beginning of life; for no 
man can grow old gracefully unless he begins early. 
He may grow old submissively, resignedly, patiently; 
but he cannot grow old gloriously and joyously, so 
that his last days are his happiest days and his best 
days, if his youth has been wasted and his manhood 
misspent. 

dfbucatton 

June Fourth 

As our physical life and the supplies which are 
essential to it are the fruit of warfare, so is our edu- 

145 



cation. We hear of self-educated men. All educated 
men are self-educated. The mind is not a vessel into 
which the teacher pours learning as the milkman pours 
milk into the bottle we have left at our door. The 
mind is a seed bed and the teacher a sun who bids the 
seed come forth. But if the seed does not burst its 
prison walls, the sun shines upon the earth in vain. 
The office of the school and college is not to think for 
their pupils, but to furnish them with the ability to 
do their own thinking. The object of education is 
to give the pupil power, and power comes only by 
struggle. A man can no more become a scholar by 
accepting other men's thought than he can become 
an athlete by looking on while other men exercise. 

Cbucatton (or Semocracp 

June Fifth 

It is the right and duty of every man to govern 
himself. It is one object of education to prepare 
him to perform this duty. It is his right to deter- 
mine his own destiny — his right because his duty. 
And as he must see with his own eyes, work with his 
own hands, and think with his own brain, so he must 
guide himself with his own judgment and rule him- 
self with his own conscience. If he is blind, some one 
else must see for him; if he is paralyzed, some one 
else must work for him. So, if he has no judgment 
or no conscience, some one else must guide and rule 
him. But every normal man is furnished with eyes 
to see, hands to work, judgment to guide, conscience 
to rule. Such is the assumption of democracy, which 

146 



holds that the object of all just government is to 
prepare the governed to govern himself. Democ- 
racy, therefore, in the family and in the school trains 
the growing child in the art of self-government. 
And democracy in the state throws responsibility 
upon the untrained citizen and is not discouraged if 
he blunders and sometimes blunders badly, for 
democracy believes that the untrained voter will 
learn by his own blunders. 

$reaent Contortion* in Sntmtftrp 

June Sixth 

One day the diners at the Waldorf-Astoria were 
startled by having an Indian club flung through the 
plate-glass window and fall upon their table. Men 
rushed out and arrested the assailant, and he was 
taken to the police station; and this was his story: 
That he was a mechanic; that he was out of work; 
that he could get nothing to do anywhere; that he 
was an expert with Indian clubs; that it finally oc- 
curred to him that he could give some exhibitions 
with the Indian clubs in saloons; that he went from 
one saloon to another; that he could earn nothing 
by his exhibition; and finally, hungry and sore at 
heart, and walking up Fifth Avenue, he saw these 
men and women feasting on viands that they could 
not digest after they had eaten them, and in a moment 
of passionate rage flung his club through the window. 
I believe he was locked up. I thought the magis- 
trate showed wisdom in giving him a good dinner. 
Reader, imagine, if you can, yourself walking the 

147 



street, looking for work, and compelled to come back 
night after night to hungry children and a disap- 
pointed wife. 

A part, and a serious part, of your responsibilities 
as American citizens in the making of America is to 
make an America in which every willing working- 
man can have work to do at fairly remunerative 
wages. Jesus represents the Prodigal Son, in the 
parable, as saying: " In my Father's house there is 
bread enough and to spare." In our Father's house 
there is such amplitude of provision that no man, 
willing to pay the price in toil for his food, should go 
hungry. So to organize society that no man in 
America, whatever his handicap, shall go unfed, un- 
clothed, and unhoused is a part of your National 
problem. 

Sntmatrial ©emocracp 

June Seventh 

I look forward to the time coming when what is 
now the exception will become the rule; when the 
great mass of wage-earners will become capitalists, 
and will, as capitalists, elect the managers to direct 
the enterprises in which they are engaged. When 
my friend says to me, That is an impossible dream, I 
reply, Nothing is impossible that is right. More 
than that, I can see in the history about me move- 
ments that are tending to this consummation. Those 
movements wise men will endeavor to guide, perhaps 
to expedite, but not to halt or hinder. . . , 

148 



Operations which twenty-five years ago men ad- 
mired as shrewd they now denounce as dishonest. 
For operations like those which netted millions of 
dollars to the operators years ago, men are now serv- 
ing their time under criminal sentence in the State's 
prison. This gradual improvement in the standards 
of honesty has been accompanied with a demand for 
closer Governmental inspection of the great corpora- 
tions. 

The property of a corporation should be estimated 
at its present real value, not at its imagined future 
value, and it should be so organized and operated that 
every workingman can put his savings into its stock 
with as much safety as he now puts them into a 
savings bank 

Hftrtmatrial ©emocracp 

June Eighth 

I hope to see a state of society in which there will 
be few or no capitalists who do not have to labor, 
and few or no laborers who are compelled to remain 
all their lives without becoming capitalists; a state 
of society in which no man will live on the fruits of 
another man's labor, and no man will be denied the 
fruits of his own labor. This is what I mean by 
industrial democracy. More specifically, it means 
the universal diffusion of the economic virtues — 
temperance, honesty, and truth; the cooperation of 
the head and hands in an industrial partnership; 
a just and equitable division of the products of their 

149 



joint industry between the tool-owners and the tool- 
users; a fair opportunity for the tool-user to become 
part owner of the tools that he labors with; growing 
cooperation between the laborer and the capitalist, 
or the tool-user and the tool-owner, in both owner- 
ship of the tool and the direction of the industry; 
and a. frank recognition of the fundamental truth 
that every individual is entitled to the product of 
his individual industry, to a just proportion of the 
product which in joint industry he has helped to 
create, and to a participation in that common wealth 
which, being produced by no individual industry, 
belongs of right to the entire community. Democ- 
racy appears to me to be slowly but surely coming 
to a recognition of these principles. In the recogni- 
tion of these principles and their incorporation in 
the industrial life of the community is the solution 
of our labor problem. 

In the proportion in which workingmen become 
owners of stock they become owners of the tools with 
which their industry is carried on. Just in that pro- 
portion the class division into laborers and capitalists 
begins to disappear. 

©rigin anb J^tature of (government 

June Ninth 

If law is the nature of things, the nature of man, 
the nature of society, the nature of the universe, 
the nature of God, there is no such thing as freedom 
from law. To escape from law it would be necessary 

150 



to escape from the universe, to escape from God, to 
escape from ourselves. Liberty and lawlessness are 
not synonymous. Liberty is not escape from law. 

Only that community is free which recognizes the 
sanctity of law — law written in the very nature of 
human society because in the nature of the men and 
women who constitute society — and honestly and 
intelligently endeavors to conform its life to that 
inherent, immutable, eternal law. Law is written 
in the very constitution of the universe. ... To 
discard law, put it aside, live as though it were not, 
accept it only so far as it accords with our own whims 
or inclinations is anarchism. To submit to it only 
because there is lodged in the law-giver power to 
inflict a penalty on the disobedient is submission to 
despotism. To recognize its sanctity, to see its 
value, to understand its purpose, to use it for the 
common welfare is liberty. . . . Liberty is voluntary 
obedience to self-recognized and self-enforced law. 

©rigm anti iBtature of <©obernment 

June Tenth 
A community which disregards the four funda- 
mental rights of man — the rights of person, of 
property, of the family, and of reputation — lives in 
anarchy and perpetual turmoil; the end thereof is 
social death. A community of individuals who 
yield obedience to these laws just in so far as they 
must and no further may have a certain measure of 
social health, may at least be preserved from social 

151 



death. But no community is strong, no community 
is on the highway to a great and common prosperity, 
which does not recognize in these laws the condi- 
tions of well-being, which does not by its united action 
promote the health and life of its members, the social 
purity of its members, the material prosperity of its 
members, and the reputation and honor of its mem- 
bers. Only such a community is a strong, self- 
governing community; only such a community is 
truly free. 

Disregard of law is suicide, obedience to law is 
health, use of law is power. 

No man has a right to take part in governing others 
who has not the intellectual and moral capacity to 
govern himself. 

®fte Spirit of ©emocracp in JXeltsfon 

June Eleventh 

Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, 
thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, 
were all written in the conscience of man before they 
were written on tables of stone. . . . When Jesus 
Christ says, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
all thy heart and soul and mind and strength, what 
he says to us is: That is what you were made for; 
love is your natural aptitude ; you were fitted for love 
as the fish for the sea and the bird for the air. . . . 

Because this religion of faith and hope and love, 
of doing justly and loving mercy and walking humbly 

152 



with God, is the universal inheritance of the human 
race, it knits us together in the bond of a fellowship 
which transcends all other fellowships. Political 
Democracy unites us in nations, Industrial Democ- 
racy in trades, Educational Democracy in a Repub- 
lic of Letters; but Religious Democracy unites men 
of all nationalities, trades, and social classes in 
a universal brotherhood. 



tCtje America of ©o-baj> 

June Twelfth 
It is not merely, it is not mainly the wealth of our 

mines, our prairies, and our forests that have drawn 
the immigrant from the old world to the new. They 
have been drawn by the fascination of freedom. In 
the old world they had been children, in the new world 
they would be men; in the old world they had been 
cared for, in the new world they would care for them- 
selves; in the old world their place in the social or- 
ganization and their industries and its rewards had 
been determined for them ; they had to travel through 
life in the first, second, third, or fourth class car in 
which they were born, in the new world all cars were 
open to them. They could find their own way, make 
their own place, perform their own chosen industry, 
secure from the world whatever reward they could 
make the world believe their service was worth. 
There they were the passive instruments of a pre- 
determined destiny; here their destiny was put into 
their own hands. There their careers were chosen for 
them; here they could choose their own careers. . . . 

153 



This is what we mean by liberty in America. It 
is self-government. We assume the ability and we 
assert the right of every normal man to be the master 
of his own life, under no other control from his neigh- 
bor than is necessary to protect his neighbor's well- 
being. 

GRbe America of ©o=bap 

June Thirteenth 
We believe in the government of each individual 
by the best that is in him. . . . We believe in obe- 
dience, but the obedience we believe in is self-obedi- 
ence. . . . We are educating an America which will 
be law-abiding because the law will be self-enacted 
and self-enforced. 

The American people . . . look upon the school- 
house as a better safeguard than the armory, because 
their constant aim, conscious and subconscious, but 
never wholly lost sight of, is not the government of 
the weak, the ignorant, and the vicious by the 
strong, the wise, and the virtuous, but the devel- 
opment of the weak, the ignorant, and the vicious 
that they may be strong enough, and wise enough, 
and virtuous enough to govern themselves. 

Government is founded on, and grows out of, the 
instinct of self-preservation. Its primary function 
is to protect the rights of men; its authority is de- 
rived from the right of the strong to protect the weak. 
If the government into which any man is born vio- 
lates this fundamental principle upon which all gov- 

154 



ernment is based, if it uses its strength, not to pro- 
tect the weak, but to oppress the weak, it no longer 
has authority. 

Sbealfet* 

June Fourteenth 

This self-governing community must have great 
ideals. Progress is proceeding from a past achieve- 
ment toward a future of as yet unrealized achieve- 
ment. The man who has no ideals is dead and does 
not know it, though his neighbors do. The nation 
that has no ideals is dead ; it has no energy or enter- 
prise. Energy and enterprise depend on the ideals. 
It was an idealist who in the days of the stage coach 
conceived of the steam locomotive. It was an ideal- 
ist who dreamed of the time when we should com- 
municate by electricity. Idealists have enabled us 
to run like the deer, swim like the fish, fly like the 
bird. When it was proposed to add Oregon to the 
United States, practical men said, " It will never do; 
before your Representative can get from Oregon to 
Washington, Congress will have adjourned." It 
was an idealist who conceived the idea of building a 
steel bridge from Washington to Oregon. The 
fathers of our Revolution were idealists, and gave to 
the world their vision of a Government resting on 
self-government. If we ever come into that state 
in which we think, as some people seem to think, 
that nothing can be done to-morrow which was not 
done yesterday, we shall be ready to be wrapped in 
our burial clothes and put in our graves. 

155 



Wt)t America of Entrap 

June Fifteenth 

The politician never sees beyond the next election; 
he never truly understands his age. The statesman 
sees a future goal and reads aright in the aspirations 
of the people the direction in which they are to be 
led. . . . The true leader of his age is the man who 
sees this divine ideal less clearly seen by his contem- 
poraries, and shows them what it means and what 
steps can be taken toward its realization. 

What are the duties of the young men who are 
going forth from our colleges and our universities? 
. . . This is the task which is laid upon you: To make 
an America that shall be strong and yet gentle; 
enterprising and yet modest; energetic and yet 
serene; courageous and yet pacific; cultivated and 
yet democratic; philanthropic and yet unsenti- 
mental; industrious and yet high-minded; religious 
and yet broad-minded. To make a Nation in which 
there shall be no masters and no sycophants; no 
corrupted politicians and no corrupting capitalists; 
no men too rich to serve and none too poor to find 
service; no libelers of their fellowmen and no jour- 
nalists that confound gossip with news; no teachers 
who do not understand fife and how to minister to 
it; and no priests or pastors who do not know that 
the only way to serve our God is by service rendered 
to God's children. 



156 



©tie America of ©o=baj> 

June Sixteenth 

They are our chief enemies who creep with slimy 
mark and poisonous purpose into the heart of the 
nation; who put their hand upon the throat of a 
great city, while they rifle its pocket with the other; 
they are the enemies who enter our own home and 
work evil, in luxury, licentiousness and divorce; 
they are our enemies who enter our commerce with 
adulterated goods and poisonous drugs; they are 
our enemies who enter our own hearts and put there 
pride and selfishness and all damnable vice. Amer- 
icans, guard your own! And you, young men, do 
not think that you can fight corruption without 
while you let corruption fester within. You cannot 
fight a corrupt government and be willing to cheat 
the government yourself of its taxes. You cannot 
fight indifference in other men and be yourself care- 
less of your own public duties. You cannot fight 
the greed that riots and plunders and have your own 
fingers itch with greed to plunder men. " Ameri- 
cans, guard your own! " Life is a battle, a battle 
in one's own heart, and there first the victory must 
be won. 

The citizen ought to ascertain as well as he can 
the character of the candidates for office and to vote 
only for trustworthy men. ... " Principles, not 
men," is a deceptive saying; for it should be sub- 
stituted, Principles in men. Principles professed by 
unprincipled men are worse than valueless. 

157 



political &e*pon£ibtlttte£ 

June Seventeenth 
God has made man in his own image; we are his 
offspring. We inherit from him ability to recognize 
the difference between right and wrong, between 
truth and falsehood, and the power to choose the 
right and eschew the wrong, to accept truth and 
reject the falsehood. This inherited power to know 
and to choose righteousness and truth involves the 
right to exercise this power. Because he has this 
dormant power which education can develop and 
make adequate, he possesses the right to receive 
this education and to exercise the power when edu- 
cation has conferred it upon him. This is what we 
mean by liberty. 

Democracy is the attempt to realize in organized 
Society the saying of Jesus, One is your Father 
which is in heaven and all ye are brethren. The 
attempt to realize this saying in our political, in- 
dustrial, and educational institutions will not be 
abandoned until and unless we lose this religious 
faith in human brotherhood. 

The problem of our American commonwealth is 
to teach men the meaning of the words which run 
so glibly from our tongues, — justice and liberty; 
to teach what are the laws under which men and 
women should live; to sweep away the cant that 
obscures the word " brotherhood," and give it a 
clear and definite meaning, not by words chiefly, but 
by our lives and our national character. 

158 



political &e*p(mgibilitie£ 

June Eighteenth 
There resides in the city of New York a popula- 
tion of about four million inhabitants, substantially 
identical in number with the entire population of 
the Colonies at the formation of the Constitution. 
There are, in this city, more Irish than in any city 
in Ireland, more Germans than in any city in Ger- 
many except Berlin, more Jews than were ever to 
be found in the city of Jerusalem, and, probably, 
more Italians than are to be found in any city in 
Italy. In this community the conditions of life are 
not moral. Had you the power to protect persons 
and property in such a community that would be 
no small task; to provide an adequate supply of 
water, air, and sunlight would be a still more difficult 
task; to provide some sanitary means of caring for 
the filth of such a city — that is, to provide proper 
sewerage — a task of still greater difficulty. But 
this is not your problem. Your problem is not to 
provide these things for the city, but to induce the 
city to provide them for itself. It is not merely to 
convert the modern city into a city safe, healthful, 
and beautiful, but to show the city how it can con- 
vert itself into a city safe, healthful, and beautiful. 

political &e£pon*ibilitieg 

June Nineteenth 
The peril to the Republic is not in a government 
too strong, but in a government not strong enough 
to cope with these two serpents that come up out of 

159 



the sea for its destruction: the mob lawlessness of 
passion and the organized lawlessness of covetous- 
ness. Your task is to make the Nation stronger and 
more coherent; to weld these various races and 
nationalities into one homogeneous people; to find 
for these various religious faiths one common under- 
lying unifying faith; to develop out of these various 
traditional moral standards a common National 
conscience; to inspire a spirit of mutual respect 
which is the foundation of social self-government; 
and so to develop out of this heterogeneous popula- 
tion, and in this as yet half-formed country, a true 
coherent, enduring, strong Nationality. 

All peoples on the face of God's globe have a right 
to justice and to liberty; and no government is 
worthy of the name, it has no right to be called gov- 
ernment, which does not give to the people under it 
those two gifts, — justice and liberty. 

Snbusttrtal &e£pongt&tlttte£ 

June Twentieth 

Among your responsibilities as American citizens 
is the responsibility to hand down to future genera- 
tions the material wealth of a country which belongs 
to them no less than to you, unimpaired by your use 
of it, as far as scientific intelligence will enable you 
to do so. 

Those of you young men who are going into 
manufacturing have no greater responsibility of 
citizenship than to eliminate from our industries 

160 



in America that latent and often expressed hostility 
between employer and employed, capitalist and 
laborer, which is with one exception perhaps the 
greatest peril which to-day threatens the American 
Commonwealth as it certainly is the greatest handi- 
cap which affects American industries. 

A very important problem before the men of the 
twentieth century is to make our great transportation 
systems open to all the people of the United States 
on equal terms. 

If the problem of agriculture is conservation, of 
manufacture cooperation, of transportation public 
service, the*problem of trade, commerce, and banking 
is honesty. 

3trint*trial 3&e^ponsJtbilitietf 

June Twenty-first 

The passion to get rich quickly, to make money 
rapidly, easily degenerates into the desire to get 
something for nothing, which is always a dishonest 
desire. It fevers our blood; incites to dishonesties; 
converts financiers into gamblers; impoverishes some, 
over enriches others; stimulates high prices; pro- 
motes extravagance; forbids rest and leisure, and 
culture and true literature; vanishes peace; despoils 
the home. 

A young man entering the medical profession 
ought to count this service — the social prevention 
of disease — as a part of his special duty as a physi- 
cian in a self-governing community. 

161 



You, young men, who are going into the profession 
of the law, if you understand your duties as citizens, 
will go not merely to conduct legal controversies 
between contestants, not merely to draw contracts 
and agreements in order to prevent contests from 
arising. As citizen lawyers in a free Common- 
wealth it is your function to express in clear and 
effective manner the social will of the community 
and to guide that will toward resolves that are at 
once noble and practicable of execution. 

®fte Republic of teofc 

June Twenty-second 

How shall Jews, Roman Catholics, Protestants, 
and Agnostics unite to fashion the affections and the 
will into a desire to move in harmony with divine 
law, to realize a divine ideal with such clarity of 
vision and such strength of purpose as shall guide 
and govern the child? This is a problem which 
America must set herself to solve, and in its solution 
she must look, and she has a right to look, to the 
teachers of America. In their duty as citizens, no 
duty is more important than this duty of making a 
truly spiritual education that shall be wholly un- 
sectarian. 

You are going out into life to serve your fellow- 
men. . . . And so you can go into this America of 
yours resolved that it shall be richer and not poorer 
because you have lived in it, more harmonious not 
more discordant, more beautiful not more ugly, 

162 



more religious not more sordid, more free not more 
enslaved, more worthy to be called the Republic of 
God. 

tEfyt XUjpn&Ift of (gob 

June Twenty-third 

We cannot have a healthful and happy America 
without healthful and happy homes and healthful 
and happy wives and mothers. A fundamental 
task in making the America of the future is such a 
re-creation of our industrial system, and such a re- 
generation of our public opinion, as will take woman 
out of those forms of labor which experience has 
proved to be alike injurious to her, to her children, 
and to the State. 

We ought to make it impossible for any man to be 
received into respectable society who has robbed 
woman of her womanhood. We ought to make it 
safe for any woman to go unattended at any hour of 
the day or night in any street of any great city; to 
go without escort to any concert or theater; and to 
receive the same unsuspicious welcome at any hotel 
which is accorded to her brother. If you say, this 
is impossible, I reply, you will not have made America 
the country it ought to be, the Republic of God, 
until you have made it possible, and I put upon you 
that charge, the protection of womanhood from 
man's greed and from man's passion. 



163 



Cfnttiren anb tfie Home 

Jun e Tiven ty-fouTth 

It is our duty as citizens of the commonwealth 
to see to it that the children of the commonwealth 
do not suffer from the ignorance or immorality of 
their parents. To-day they do suffer from both 
causes. . . . Children are entitled not only to life, 
but also to childhood; to its freedom, its merriment, 
its sports, and its opportunity for development into 
a useful manhood; above all, to home life. 

In the decade ending 1906 the courts in the United 
States granted twenty-five divorces every hour of 
the working day. It is not too much to say that the 
notion which underlies this facility of divorce is the 
notion that only the happiness of the husband and 
wife are to be considered; that if, in the judgment of 
the court, the husband and wife are not living hap- 
pily together, a separation is to be decreed; that they 
owe any duties to the children is scarcely recognized. 
Certainly it is not recognized that the object of mar- 
riage is, primarily, the rearing and training of chil- 
dren, and that their duty to their children is the first 
and most fundamental consideration. 

We have slipped unconsciously into the old Pagan 
conception of marriage, and it will require long and 
persistent education to bring us back to the Chris- 
tian conception of marriage as a Divine order, of the 
family as the unit of the State, and of the right of 
the children to the perpetuity of the family. 



164 



CJjtlbren anb Robert? 

June Twenty-fifth 

It is no small part of your responsibilities as Amer- 
ican citizens to unify the laws of the various States 
against child labor, to provide for their due and 
efficient enforcement, to require the parents to see 
that their children receive the education which the 
State provides for them, to see that the State pro- 
vides education adequate to equip them for future 
life, to make their education more vocational and 
less academic and theoretical, to provide the town 
school with apparatus for mechanical industries, 
and the rural school with ground and teachers for 
agricultural industry, to recognize the right of the 
child to his childhood. 

The Declaration of Independence declares that we 
have an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness. Poverty denies them all. 
It is a Herod that slays remorselessly the infant 
children. It compels a man to take what job he 
can, at what wages are offered him, drives the woman 
from the care of her children to the factory to eke 
out her husband's inadequate wage, and not infre- 
quently robs the child of his right to an education 
that he may add his mite to the earnings of the 
household. It takes comfort from the home, joy 
from the heart, engraves sad, harsh lines on the 
mother's face, denies merriment to the child, and 
makes him old before his time. The law, " thou 
shalt earn thy bread by the sweat of thy brow," is 

165 



a permission as well as a command. Every man 
willing so to earn it has a right so to earn it. If 
he cannot, there is cause not merely for charity, but 
for justice. 

3&eltgtou* &e£pon$ibtlttte£ 

June Twenty-sixth 
Responsibilities of American citizenship are not 
merely political. They cannot be fulfilled by voting 
for good candidates or for wise politics. Our fathers 
in the Preamble to the Constitution declared their 
purpose: it was to form a more perfect union, estab- 
lish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for 
the common defense, promote the general welfare, 
secure the blessings of liberty. These results can- 
not be achieved by law alone. In a self-governing 
community laws are only the expression of the life 
of the community. To secure these blessings for 
yourselves and your posterity you must create the 
life of doing justly, loving mercy, and walking rev- 
erently. The spirit of justice, which is a desire to 
do unto others as we would have others do unto us; 
the spirit of mercy, which is the desire to help our 
fellow-men, whatever their past history or present 
conditions or character, upward and forward to a 
larger, better, and happier life; the spirit of rev- 
erence, which is a recognition of the voice of God 
in the voice of conscience and obedience to law, not 
coerced by a fear of penalty but inspired by a spirit 
of loyalty. And this you can accomplish only by 
political, industrial, educational, humanitarian, and 

166 



religious cooperation. Only by developing the life 
within can you make the Nation sane and sound 
in its outward life. Only thus can you make out 
of the America of to-day an America of the future that 
shall fulfil the ideal of its founders and be worthy of 
the heritage of land and opportunity which God has 
given to you. 

Beligioug &e£pongtbtlttteg 

June Twenty-seventh 
I believe that the Nation must as a Nation be 
pervaded by the religious spirit and that among the 
responsibilities of your citizenship in the making of 
America you have no responsibilities more impor- 
tant than inspiring it with a true religious spirit. 
And to make my meaning clear I will take as my 
definition of the religious spirit one with which we 
are all familiar — that of the prophet Micah : Doing 
justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. 
My thesis then is this: The spirit of justice, mercy, 
and reverence is essential to the peace, the pros- 
perity, and even the perpetuity of the American 
Republic as a self-governing, cooperative common- 
wealth. 

Justice is as truly a religious act as a worship: 
and justice is the first duty of the Nation. Justice 
must be the basis of the Nation's laws; justice the 
characteristic of the Nation's courts; justice the end 
of the Nation's systems of jurisprudence, both crim- 
inal and civil. It will not be doubted that the Bible 
is essentially a religious book; take down a copy of 

167 



the Bible and see how large a proportion of it is 

given either to an exposition of the principles of 

justice, to the application of those principles in specific 

cases, or to the history of the administration of such 

justice, either between man and man in government, 

or between God and man in history. 

The administration of justice is the first function 

of government. 

Justice is conformity to divine law. 

Liberty is voluntary self-enforcement of divine law. 

Peace is habitual harmony with divine law. 

XUIfgfott* Besponsflbtltttea 

June Twenty-eighth 
In a self-governing community the whole people 
are called upon to enact and administer the law. 
In a self-governing community, therefore, the whole 
people must be animated by the spirit of justice if 
just laws justly administered are to be expected. 
What we mean by a self-governing or self-controlled 
individual is that in him his sensual appetites and 
passions, and his desire for property or fame or 
power are under the control of his reason and his 
conscience. What we mean by a self-governing 
community is one in which the appetites and pas- 
sions, the desire for property and fame and power 
of the people who make up the community are under 
the control of their reason and their judgment. . . . 
They are free only when they are able to hear the 
voice of their own conscience interpreting the eternal 
law to them and are of their own will obedient to 
that law. 

168 



You cannot carry on cooperative industry without 
industrial organizations. You cannot educate the 
country without educational organizations. You 
cannot govern the country without political institu- 
tions. And you cannot inspire the country with 
the spirit of justice, mercy, and reverence without 
religious institutions through which justice, mercy, 
and reverence find inspiring expression. 

fteligiou* ftegpcmgitulttieg 

June Twenty-ninth 

The Church of Christ should not be merely a 
temple of worship and a school of instruction, but 
even more a brotherhood of service. In the measure 
in which the Church confines itself to conducting 
public worship and teaching theology its power 
wanes. In the measure in which it is a brotherhood 
of service, and uses its worship to inspire men to 
service, and its instruction to guide men in service, 
it grows in power. . . . Wherever the Church has 
come out from behind its closed doors to carry hope 
and help to them that need it, its power in the pres- 
ent is greater than it ever was in the past. Perhaps 
preaching is losing its power. Perhaps public wor- 
ship is losing its power. But the spirit of service 
inspired by reverence for Jesus Christ and guided by 
his teaching and example is not losing its power. 

Every church that is worthy of the name in Amer- 
ica is to-day a working church. Democracy has 
made working churches, because democracy has 
thrown the responsibility of the religious institution 

169 



on the individual member. And out from these 
churches have gone forth spiritual forces, reaching 
far beyond ecclesiastical walls, — the Young Men's 
Christian Associations, the Young Women's Chris- 
tian Associations, the Societies of Christian En- 
deavor, the King's Daughters, and cognate organ- 
izations. 

This is what has been wrought in America by 
a century of faith in man, hope for man, good will 
toward man. A land wide in extent, rich in popu- 
lation, growing in wealth and in the diffusion of 
wealth, in education and in the diffusion of edu- 
cation, growing in religious institutions and in the 
power of an awakened conscience and an awakened 
spirit of faith and hope and love. The distinguish- 
ing spirit of America is this spirit of faith in man, 
hope for man, and good will toward man. 

®fje Conflict of tfje Centuries 

June Thirtieth 
The fundamental principles according to which 
the nation must frame all its policies, both in domestic 
and in foreign dealing, remain, and must remain, 
subjects for public discussion and popular instruc- 
tion. I assume that there are such principles, that 
they are absolute, eternal, unalterable because they 
are divine, that they inhere in the nature of man and 
of human society because they inhere in the nature 
of God which man inherits from his Father, that 
God is in his world directing its course toward the 
ultimate victory of righteous principles. 

170 



Martin Luther . . . did not merely put the Bible 
above the Church as the final authority; he did not 
merely claim for man what is called the right of 
private judgment under the authority of either 
Bible or Church; he affirmed that Christ was with 
his Church always, even to the end of the world; 
that he was not merely with the hierarchy, but was 
with every one who honestly sought to know and do 
his will; that there could be no vicegerent when the 
King was present, and that the King is present with 
and in every soul. 

I have called Jesus Christ the Prophet of the 
New Judaism, for so he may be called when regarded 
simply as a social reformer. He took up the message 
of the earlier Hebrew prophets and repeated, em- 
phasized, amplified, and extended it. His followers 
built upon their faith in his death and resurrection, 
a faith that he had come to emancipate the many 
from the thrall of the few and found a new social 
order on the earth in which ambition should seek, 
not the highest things for self, but opportunity for 
the highest service for others; witnesses to his per- 
son and heralds of the new life, they went forth as 
missionaries to proclaim the advent of a kingdom of 
God or of heaven on the earth, in which the poor 
should be recipients of glad tidings, the broken- 
hearted should be healed, the captives delivered, 
the blind made to see, and the bruised should re- 
ceive their liberty. 



171 



W$t Perife of JBemocracp 

July First 

The pessimist, who sees only evil in the present 
and danger in the future, does little to guard us 
against the evils of the present or to prepare us for 
meeting with courage and effectiveness the perils 
of the future. The optimist, who insists that we 
should look always at the bright side of things, and 
who desires to close our eyes to present evils and to 
future perils, does quite as little to prepare us to 
escape present evil or to avoid or overcome future 
danger. A brave man does not believe in looking 
only at the bright side of things. He wishes to look 
on all sides of things; he wishes to know the evil as 
well as the good, the peril as well as the promise. 

Democracy has two weaknesses: first, the weak- 
ness of a standard not the highest, and, second, the 
weakness of a will that is often not alert. Out of 
these two, coupled with the spirit of individualism, 
— the apotheosis of the individual and the enthrone- 
ment of the individual will, — grows a spirit of lawless- 
ness. 

This spirit of lawlessness is seen in many and 
various manifestations: in the national habit of 
putting laws upon the statute-book with a tacit 
understanding that they are not to be obeyed, or 
with a quiet disregard of them in localities where 
the law is not popular; in the common saying, which 
national experience does much to confirm, that 
law is no stronger than the public opinion which is 

172 



behind it, and accordingly the law enacted by state 
authority is no stronger in any particular city or 
county than the public sentiment in that locality. 

Democrat? 

July Second 
Democracy means radical changes in all the mate- 
rial conditions of life, and in the nature and the 
spirit of life: in the means of intercommunication 
and transportation; in the tools and implements of 
industry; in the comforts of the homes; in the op- 
portunities for self -de velopment ; in the fundamental 
conceptions of the aims and the uses of the institu- 
tions of religion. It means not merely government 
of the people, by the people, and for the people: it 
means, no less, wealth, industry, education, religion, 

— in a word, life, — for the people. 

Democracy is not a mere form of government. 
It is a religious faith. It is a spirit of life — a spirit 
of mutual regard for each other's interests and mutual 
respect for each other's opinions; it is government 
by public opinion; it is liberty, equality, fraternity 

— in the institutions of religion, of industry, and 
of education as well as in government; in a word, it 
is human brotherhood. 

Jesus Christ not only prophesied democracy, but 
laid the foundations and furnished the inspiration 
essential for it. 

Democracy will not be perfected until it becomes a 
Brotherhood of Man, and a Brotherhood of Man is 

173 



impossible unless founded on faith in the Fatherhood 
of God. 

America 9 * &e*ponaiinIitie£ 

July Third 

In vain does opportunity invite us if we are not 
ready to receive it. No splendor of the past suffices 
to give glory to the present. 

The Jews prided themselves on being the children 
of Abraham. But to a faithless generation it profits 
nothing that they can look back to an ancestor who 
was full of faith and dared a great adventure. It is 
not our glory but our shame that we are the de- 
scendants of men who fought at Bunker Hill and 
suffered at Valley Forge if we have not their cour- 
ageous patriotism. That they founded a Republic 
conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposi- 
tion that all men are created equal avails us nothing 
if we have not the self-denying courage necessary 
to protect that Republic from corruption within 
and enemies without. Are we prepared to keep 
burning in 1918 the lamp they lighted in 1776? If 
not, we are the unworthy descendants of a worthy 
ancestry and will find the door of the future barred 
in our faces. 

No man should allow himself ever to lose the 
ideals and hopes of his youth, for they are the secret 
of perpetual youth and perpetual youth is an essen- 
tial condition of usefulness. The octogenarian who 
lives only in the memory of the past will never find 

174 



an opportunity for useful service for himself nor be 
able to aid his grandchildren to find one. 

amertca'g &e£ponsrtbilittes; 

July Fourth 

The Jews regarded themselves as a favored people 
of God. He had given them a fertile and fruitful 
land. They were protected by His Providence from 
peril without and guided by His counsel in their 
national courses. They were right in thinking 
themselves a favored people. But Isaiah makes it 
clear that they are elected, not for privilege, but for 
service. They are chosen, not to receive great 
glory, but to do a great work in the world. They 
are to be a light to the other nations; they are to 
be a salvation for the whole of humanity. 

More even than the Hebrew people have the 
American people been favored of God. Their land 
is richer, their history more splendid. Never in 
the world's history has there been a hundred years 
more remarkable than our hundred years; never an 
empire ready-made handed over to a people, pre- 
pared therefor; never a growth in wealth and in 
population, in human development, in largeness of 
civilization, comparable to the growth which has 
taken place on this continent within the last one 
hundred years. We are an elect people of God. 
We have received, preeminently, His blessing, His 
gifts, and shone with His glory. 

And now He is teaching, it seems to me, that He 
has elected us for a service, and not merely for our 

175 



own glory. He has elected us, not merely to enjoy 
wealth and culture and liberty for ourselves, but to 
be a light to the nations of the world and a salvation 
for all humanity. 



©!je (goal of JBtmoixaip 

July Fifth 

Life is organized for service, and the goal of de- 
mocracy is the realization of that ideal in which every 
man shall look not only upon his own things, but 
also on the things of his brother; in which every man 
shall endeavor to help the weaker man through the 
hard places of life; in which every man shall recog- 
nize that his place in life, wherever it may be, is a 
place for the service of others, not for self-service. 
In this truth, that life is a place for service, and he 
who renders the greatest service is the greatest man, 
not in the groundless notion that all men are equal 
in their abilities or endowments or ought to be equal 
in their office or function, is the foundation of democ- 
racy to be found. 

Such seems to me to be the goal toward which 
that democracy whose source is to be traced to the 
Hebraic commonwealth has been steadily tending: 
universal happiness, founded on the development of 
character, wrought by a gradual process, inspired 
by the indwelling of God, and leading to the unifi- 
cation of the human race in one brotherhood, bound 
together by love, and manifesting itself in mutual 
service. 

176 



Would Jesus . . . discourage effort, paralyze en- 
deavor, forbid the strenuous life, chill ambition and 
aspiration, make sluggish the blood of enthusiasm? 
No ; he was himself, in the noblest sense of the term, 
an enthusiast. His life was a strenuous one. Rarely 
in human history has any individual crowded as 
much into three years as did he. But his energy was 
expended in service for others, not in acquisition for 
himself. His life interprets his teaching. What he 
seems to me to say is this: Put all your ambition, 
all your enthusiasm, into the work of service. Make 
it the aim of your life to leave the world better and 
happier because you have lived in it, and take without 
greed or grasping what the world will give you of 
service in return. 

tfffte <@oal of democrat? 

July Sixth 

Democracy does not yet clearly perceive the fourth 
principle which Jesus Christ inculcated, namely, 
that the secret of all life is God dwelling in man and 
inspiring him to an ever higher life. And yet de- 
mocracy already begins to feel after this truth, if 
haply it may find it; and I cannot but think that if 
it fails to see it clearly, it is partly because religious 
teachers have failed to see it clearly, or to present it 
so that others should see it clearly. 

Law according to the Christian conception, law 
according to the Old Testament conception, law as 
more and more democracy is coming to see it, is the 

177 



law of man's own nature. It is not an edict issued 
by a king, nor a statute framed by God; it is the law 
of man's own organism. The moral law is a part of 
his organism and a product of it. Those laws of the 
social order which bind men together in a great 
social organism are not made by man; they are 
made by the Creator of man; they are divine. 

Loyalty to the father and mother makes the family 
one. So loyalty to God makes the human race 
one. 

u Our Father " is more than an acknowledgment 
of our relation to God, it is an acknowledgment of 
our relation to one another; and this relation which 
we bear to one another is the relation of brothers in 
a family, as the relation which we bear to God is 
the relation of children to a father. 



fltfje JBifile anb Hibertp 

July Seventh 

I stand by the great historic facts: First, this: 
that the Bible, in every page, from Genesis to Revela- 
tion, is written all over with the resplendent light 
of liberty; that when Moses first called the children 
of Israel together and massed them at the foot of 
Mount Sinai, not even God Almighty would assume 
to be their king until he had sent Moses down to 
take their vote, by universal suffrage, whether they 
would have him to be their king or not; that, in 

178 



the New Testament again, Christ's words to his dis- 
ciples were, " Call no man master; " and Paul's, 
" Every man shall give account of himself to God." 
And along with that I put the other great fact that 
the history of liberty has always followed, in its 
successive evolutions, the history of the Christian 
church. Freedom growing out of the Bible has 
made liberty efflorescent and fruitful in the com- 
munity. It was the Protestant Reformation that 
was the mother of liberty in Europe and in America. 



Cftrtetianitp anb ©emocracp 

July Eighth 

Christ did not merely teach that the rich should 
contribute of their affluence to the poor, and the wise 
should offer occasional instruction to the ignorant: 
he set himself to reverse the prevalent social con- 
dition, — to make the many rich and the many wise. 
He taught that the whole human race — not a few 
at the top; not the learned, the rich, the aristo- 
cratic; not the members of a small and favored 
nation, the Jews, but the whole human race — is 
to be educated, transformed, enfranchised, enriched. 
He reversed the world's standard of values. He 
taught that wealth consists in character, not in pos- 
session. He reversed the world's measure of great- 
ness. " He that is greatest among you," he said, 
" shall be your servant." He affirmed the brother- 
hood of the human race, and challenged alike the 
prejudices of the aristocracy by his companionship 

179 



with the poor, the ignorant and the outcast, and the 
prejudices of the common people by his commenda- 
tion of virtue in the pagan. 

The world has always bowed at the shrine of 
wealth. To wealth Christ paid no deference. His 
congregations were composed chiefly of the common 
people; his special friends and companions were 
chosen from them. Among them he found his social 
fellowship. The rich man who fared sumptuously 
every day, oblivious of the poverty about him, he 
portrayed as in another life suffering torments in 
hell; the outcast beggar, as in Paradise. The shrewd 
and crafty capitalist, whose only notion of prosperity 
was accumulation and still accumulation, he called 
a " fool." A corrupt ring had installed themselves 
in the outer court of the temple, turned it into a 
market-place, and driven the common people out. 
With flashing eye he turned upon the traffickers and 
single-handed drove them away. Personally he 
shared the poverty of the poor with them, and re- 
quired those who wished to unite themselves to him 
in the innermost circle of his friends to do the same; 
much in the spirit in which to-day a Salvationist 
working in the slums submits to the conditions of 
the life which she endeavors to transform. 

Cfjtigttamtp aub ©emotracp 

July Ninth 

Yet despite the fact that wealth has never been 
so diffused, and the comforts wealth brings never so 
broadcast, as in America to-day, the thoughtful stu- 

180 



dent of our national life must certainly recognize 
that the concentration of wealth is America's great- 
est peril, and a more equable distribution of wealth 
its greatest need. That cannot be counted either 
a Christian or a democratic state of society in which 
one per cent of the people own one half of all the 
wealth, and the other half is very unequally dis- 
tributed among the other ninety per cent of owners, 
— in which there are a few millionaires at one pole 
of society who cannot possibly spend their income, 
and many men and women at the other pole of 
society who have little or no income to spend. 

For the evils of such concentration of wealth are 
many and great. It tends to degradation at one 
pole of society by producing luxury, enervation, 
effeminacy, and a class of idle rich. It tends to 
degradation at the other pole of society by dead- 
ening men's hopes, destroying their ambition, con- 
centrating their whole life's thought on the mere 
problem of living, condemning them to a life of 
drudgery, if not also to a spirit of servitude. It 
imperils liberty. 

Concentration of wealth paralyzes industry, dif- 
fusion of wealth stimulates industry; the greater 
the diffusion the more prosperous the nation. The 
economic problem of our age is how to secure the 
benefits of organization in producing wealth without 
incurring the evils of concentration in the possession 
and enjoyment of it. 



181 



Cfjrtettanitp anb ©emocracp 

July Tenth 

Christianity . . . puts no discouragement on in- 
dustry. It recognizes the ambition to acquire prop- 
erty as a worthy ambition, provided it is under right 
direction and guided to right ends. The first duty 
a man owes is the duty of earning his own livelihood, 
and the livelihood of those who are intrusted to him. 

There is not a spark of electricity that runs across 
the wires, not a sound that trembles on the telephone, 
not a throb of the steam-engine, not a drop of falling 
water in cascades, which is not the work of God. 
For whom? For the few fortunate men who have 
had the skill to discover these latent forces, or the 
sagacity to take advantage of some one else's dis- 
covery? No, for his entire family. There is a 
reason in justice, and a reason in expediency, why 
the nation should give a large measure of the first 
profits to the men whose insight first discovers, 
whose wisdom first applies to useful service, these 
divine forces. But the forces themselves are not 
private property; they belong to humanity. 



firopertp te a t&xu&t 

July Eleventh 

He who loves his neighbor as himself will count 
his own interests part of the common interests; his 
rights will be measured in his judgment by the rights 
of his neighbor. Personal welfare and public wel- 

182 



fare will become identified. Egoism and altruism 
will be cooperative, not conflicting. The doctrine 
that property is a trust is explicit in the teachings of 
Christ concerning property. Man is a steward; to 
different men are given different possessions; each 
one is to trade with the talents intrusted to him, 
but all are to give account to the Master in a future 
day of reckoning. 

This wealth of the continent was here when our 
ancestors arrived here. It is not the product of our 
capacity and our industry. It belongs to Him who 
put it here. And unless we suppose that He put it 
here for the benefit of a few men, unless we deny 
that He is the Father " from whom every family 
in heaven and on earth is named," then it was put 
here for the benefit of all his children. Whether it is 
administered by the nation as a nation, or by in- 
dividuals to whom the course of events has given 
control of it, it is a sacred trust for all, not the special 
privilege and possession of the few. 

At the last every man must meet the question, 
" How have you administered the trust? " If he is 
wise he will be asking himself this question day by 
day. 

$ropertp i* a GDruat 

July Twelfth 
It does not follow that all this property is to be 
held in common and administered in common, but 
it does follow that every man who controls any part 

183 



of this property, whether it has come from the soil, 
or from natural forces, or from public highways, or 
from what he calls private enterprise, has taken it 
from the hands of God, and is to administer it in 
trust for humanity. That is the doctrine of Chris- 
tianity. It leaves to the people individual enter- 
prise; it contemplates and intends variations of 
wealth and of condition ; but it maintains this funda- 
mental principle: That every man is a trustee, and 
every man must account for the administration of 
his trust. 

He is a trustee, first of all, for his own family. 
Whatever money comes to us we are to hold in trust, 
first, for our own household, not for luxury, which 
enervates and destroys, but for education, culture, 
development. We have not only a right, but a duty, 
to make provision for the manhood of our boys and 
the womanhood of our girls. Next, we are trustees 
for those who are engaged with us in industrial life. 

Every man who has workingmen in his employ is 
a trustee for them. He and they are in a true sense 
partners engaged in a common enterprise. He owes 
them an obligation which wages do not meet. . . . 
And the time will come when every merchant and 
every manufacturer will follow the example which 
is now set by many a merchant and many a manu- 
facturer, and will stand by his crew in stormy times. 



184 



CtjrtfiJtianitp anb happiness; 

July Thirteenth 

Christianity is founded upon the belief that hap- 
piness depends primarily upon character, that a 
good man in evil conditions will be happy, and that 
a bad man in good conditions will be miserable. 
Jesus Christ has expressed this faith very clearly 
in the opening paragraph of the Sermon on the 
Mount. Blessedness, he says in effect, is dependent, 
not upon what the individual possesses, but upon 
what the individual is, and each quality in character 
has its own blessedness. They that mourn are 
blessed, because by their sorrow they are made 
strong. The meek are blessed, for they, not the 
grasping, enjoy the earth. They who hunger and 
thirst after righteousness are blessed, for this is a 
craving which is certain to be satisfied. The pure 
in heart are blessed, for they shall enjoy the vision 
of the higher things, especially of God, denied to 
those who indulge their imagination in sensual images. 
Teaching this by his words, Christ taught it even 
more clearly by his life. He absolutely disregarded 
the conditions which men are accustomed to think 
essential to happiness; was untroubled by his pov- 
erty; cared not that he had no place in which to 
lay his head; depended on the hospitality of the 
community for his earthly subsistence; sought, day 
by day, his bread from his heavenly Father, and 
impliedly taught his followers that they might do 
the same. And yet, going through such a life of 
poverty, accompanied with public contumely, a 

185 



social outcast from the higher intellectual circles of 
his time, and under the shadow of oncoming death, 
he left, as his highest legacy to his followers, this 
bequest: "These things have I spoken to you that 
my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might 
be full." 

Cfjrtet's ILm of g>ertrite 

July Fourteenth 

The babe is laid in the mother's arms, the unfittest 
infant on the face of the globe to survive, for there is 
no other infant that has not more capacity to take 
care of himself than the human infant. At once we 
all begin to study how this unfittest can survive. . . . 
There is no service that we must not render for the 
little king, who is king because he is dependent; 
only as we love him, and care for him, and give our- 
selves in unrequited service to him, will he survive. 
If we were to take these two principles of the home 
and carry them out into our industries, if the prob- 
lem of the capitalist was, how large wages he could 
give and still keep his business going, and the prob- 
lem of the laborer, how much work he could give and 
still maintain the time necessary for his own highest 
manhood; if the problem in our life was to "bear 
one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ," 
which is also the law of democracy; if we really be- 
lieved that he who would be greatest among us 
should be the servant of all, can any one doubt that 
the social problem which perplexes us would be 
solved? 

186 



Cftnat's Hato of Sorbite 

July Fifteenth 

It is not a mere moral apothegm, it is a scientific 
principle, that labor alone is honorable, and idleness 
unenforced always dishonorable. . . . 

Give heed, you who think you have no need to 
work because your rich fathers worked before you; 
who imagine that a life is honorable which is spent 
in using what other men have produced; who go 
through school, academy, and college, coming out 
with the ripened fruits of culture and all the advan- 
tages which wealth and society give, but never imag- 
ine that you are called upon to give back to the 
world, in some form or other, what God has given 
to you. Every man is bound, by the gifts of health, 
intelligence, capacity, and opportunity which God 
has given him, to put into the world at least as much 
as he takes out of it. Every man should be inspired 
by a noble ambition to leave the world richer, better, 
and nobler for his having lived in it; we are not to 
forget that even the invalid should by his suffering 
so teach the world patience, as to be a producer of 
wealth of spirit. 

There is only one honest way to get rich, — the 
production of wealth by honest industry. 

Cfjrist'a Hato of deduce 

July Sixteenth 

^ The first principle, then, is respect for labor, and 
respect for each other's labor; respect by the man 

187 



who works with his brain for the man who works 
with his hand, and respect by the man who works 
with his hand for the man who works with his brain, 
— mutual respect. When we have thoroughly 
learned this one fundamental principle, that to de- 
stroy is not honorable and to produce is, that the 
glory of the nation lies in its production, that the 
glory of life lies in adding to the wealth of life, — 
its material, its intellectual, its spiritual wealth, — 
we shall have learned one great underlying lesson. 
Until we have learned this, all other learning is in 
vain, for this is the foundation. The greatest of all 
is the servant of all. We believe this in the church: 
the minister is the servant of the congregation. We 
believe it in politics: the President is the servant of 
the people. We shall not get to the Christian basis 
of industry until we come to recognize in industry 
also that there is no such thing as independence, and 
that the greatest and the richest and the strongest 
is great only as he is the servant of the weak and the 
poor. 

The only way the race can be wrought out in 
human history is by the strong bearing the burdens 
of the weak, and the wise bearing the burdens of the 
ignorant, and the rich bearing the burdens of the 
poor. 

Cfjrtef* g>tanbarb of Valued 

July Seventeenth 
The laborer and the capitalist are partners in a 
common enterprise. An injury to one is an injury 
to both. A benefit to one is a benefit to both. Their 

188 



interests are common interests, and the experience 
of the world justifies the declaration that the industry 
which promotes the noblest manhood in the worker 
produces the best result in the goods. No industrial 
system is in its essence a Christian system which does 
not practically recognize the truth that it is ruinous 
to grind up men, women, and children, in order to 
make cheap goods. No industrial system is righteous 
which does not make such a division of the profits 
as to give to all who are engaged in it a living wage. 
What is a living wage I will not here undertake to 
discuss. It must at least provide for food, shelter, 
and clothing. It ought to provide books, pictures, 
education. And it ought to enable the man to earn 
the livelihood for his wife and his younger children. 
A living wage is not, however, in itself the con- 
summation of justice: it is only one means toward 
that consummation. Justice demands that all those 
engaged in a common enterprise should share its 
profits and its losses. Commercially speaking, it 
should be so conducted that every one engaged in it 
will have as the result, if he is temperate and in- 
dustrious, enough to maintain life, — physical, in- 
tellectual, and spiritual; but he may be entitled to 
more. 

Cftrfafs g>tanbarb of Values; 

July Eighteenth 

Cheap and rapid transit is making it possible for 

workingmen to live in the suburbs of the great cities, 

in homes of their own, each with its plot of ground 

about it. The loan and building associations, when 

189 



honorably conducted . . . have enabled the thrifty 
workingman to construct his own home out of his 
wages, and so become his own landlord. Thus, 
gradually, though far too gradually, legislation, 
curbing criminal greed; philanthropy, content with 
moderate return for capital invested; municipal 
ownership of railroads, reducing railroad fares to 
actual cost of transportation; a spirit of thrift, en- 
couraged by fair wages; moderate hours and a hope 
of "getting on," — are combining to destroy the 
slum and make possible homes for the poor. 

An essential condition of human well-being is a 
pure, good home. 

Settlement of Hafcor Controberstea 

July Nineteenth 
Capital is organized; labor is organized. How 
can we settle controversies between them and put an 
end to strife? What alternative is there for strikes 
and lockouts? Christ replies: Conciliation, arbi- 
tration, law. 

Our labor problem as it actually presents itself in 
real life is simply this: How can a community of 
men that are dealing with each other selfishly five 
peaceably? And the answer is, They cannot at all. 
Peace can be brought about only when that law of 
justice which is expressed by the Golden Rule and 
the law, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, 
are inwrought into the industrial fabric of society. . . . 

190 



There is no radical cure for labor troubles but 
character transformed and conduct controlled by 
Christian principles. 

Conciliation, the recognition by employer and 
employed that they are partners in a common enter- 
prise; arbitration, the adjustment of all questions 
of self-interest, that cannot be adjusted through 
conciliation, by reference to a mutually chosen tri- 
bunal; and the intervention of law where public 
rights are infringed upon by controversy between 
laborer and capitalist, — this seems to me to be the 
application of Christ's method for the solution of 
the labor war, until we come to the full recognition 
of the fact that workingman and capitalist are part- 
ners in a common enterprise, and the very motive 
of war ceases to exist. 

Hato tor JJergonal Controbergieg 

July Twentieth 

The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of 
man are the postulates of Christ's instruction, and 
the realization in human life of these ideals is the end 
of his ministry. Therefore all these separations 
which divide men into cliques and classes, and set 
them into antagonism to one another, are against 
the spirit of Christ; they are hindrances to the 
coming and the perfecting of his kingdom. To 
repair these fractures, to bring together those who 
were before separated, is to promote Christ's king- 
dom. The time is coming when all mankind will 

191 



recognize that such peace-makers are God's children, 
and are doing God's work. They shall be called the 
children of God. 

The sinful man is my brother. Sin has not broken 
the bonds of brotherhood. He needs me, and there- 
fore I need him; he wants my help, and therefore I 
want to give him my help. 

If a man's desires are high and pure, and his ex- 
pectation clear and strong, his life will be full of in- 
spiration. 

©je Jlle&sage of tije Cfturd) to tfte Morlb 

July Twenty-first 

Our National questions for the last hundred years 
have not been, what is it wise, but what is it right 
for the nation to do. The slavery question, the 
temperance question, the educational question, the 
immigration question, the labor question, the silver 
question, the tariff question, are all moral questions; 
they all involve the public consideration of such 
fundamental questions as: What are the rights of 
persons, of property, of the family, of reputation? 
what is it to live justly and love mercy? and to many 
of us, what would Jesus Christ do if he were living 
in our day and were a member of our community? 
It is hardly too much to say that the fundamental 
principles inculcated by the Bible have been as much 
discussed by the newspapers and the magazines and 
on the platform as in the pulpits. Though in the 
newspapers and on the platforms the Bible has not 

192 



often been quoted, and the Church almost never, it 
is nevertheless true that the moral principles incul- 
cated in the Bible and by the Church are the prin- 
ciples by which the people have tested the politics 
submitted to them for discussion and decision. 

To this universal education, carried on ever since 
the foundation of our Union in 1787, we owe the 
fact that we have what Germany apparently lacks 
— a national conscience. The conscience may not 
recognize the authority of either the Bible or the 
Church; but from the Bible and from the Church it 
has received education and derived its faith in the 
moral principles and the moral ideals which are im- 
bedded in the Nation's character and have done so 
much to determine the National life. 

Thus when the elemental rights of man — the right 
to life, to the family, to property, to reputation — 
were openly, flagrantly, defiantly violated by Ger- 
many, a morally instructed people were hot with 
indignation, and when the brave but almost despair- 
ing resistance of plundered peoples cried to us from 
across the sea for help, the sentiments of mercy, 
service and self-sacrifice, inspired in the Nation by 
the life and character of Jesus Christ, and by the 
fives of many of his followers, were ready to listen 
to the call and respond to the summons. 

Wfyt iHestfage of tfje Sfflorfo to tfje Cfmrd) 

July Twenty-second 

The spirit of lawless self-will, which is the essence 
of sin, is pervasive, destructive of the individual, 

102 



destructive of society, a bequest from parent to 
child and so on from one generation to another; it 
is infectious, racial, corporate. Give it play and 
it will prove a deadly poison to the community, the 
nation, the race. . . . 

This is the message of the world to the Church: 
the terribleness of moral evil and the inefficiency of 
quack remedies prescribed for it by certain schools 
of philosophy. And the world calls upon the Church 
with an uninterpreted cry to know whether this 
tragedy of tragedies has any remedy. Franklin 
and Morse and Edison and Marconi have brought to 
the world the gift of electricity, and in electricity 
the world has found a light to illumine our darkness 
and a power to carry our burdens. Has the Church 
any gift to lighten our moral darkness, any power to 
strengthen us for our moral burdens? 

In the sixth century before Christ the land of 
Israel was devastated; her holy city was in ruins; 
her people were in captivity; paganism was tri- 
umphant ; darkness covered the earth and gross dark- 
ness the people. Then it was that Isaiah summoned 
them to courage with the call, "Arise, shine; for 
thy light is come, and the glory of Jehovah is risen 
upon thee." Has the Church in America to-day the 
faith of Isaiah? Does she believe she has the gift 
of light which will make known to a puzzled and per- 
plexed humanity God's way upon the earth? 



194 



GHbe JHe&sase of tfje JHortti to fte Cfmrcf) 

Ji% Twenty-third 

The first century of the Christian era was perhaps 
the darkest period of human history, a period of 
popular ignorance in the homes, of superstition in 
the temples, of vice in the palaces, of cruelty in the 
popular amusements. Paul, looking upon Rome 
and portraying its degradation with terrible fidelity, 
declared that he possessed a glad tidings which re- 
vealed a power that would save the world, both Jew 
and Gentile, if they would accept it. Is the Church 
in America acquainted with this glad tidings; has 
it faith in the power of this glad tidings? . . . There 
never was a time when the world was so ready, yes! 
so eager, to hear the message of Isaiah and Paul, the 
message of light and power. There never was a 
time when it was so much needed and the world 
was so ready to welcome faith in a God who is our 
strength and song, and who, if we understand his 
way and walk in it, will become our salvation. 

To help man to find God, to help God to reveal 
himself to man, and to promote the life of God in the 
soul of man — this is the end of all services and cere- 
monies, all creeds and sacraments, all preaching and 
teaching, all ministry of Church, Bible, nature and 
life. 

Religion is not merely a kind of emotion, it is a 
principle of life. It is love, not only in the heart, 
but in all the experience, outward and inward; ruling 

195 



all conduct, controlling feet in the journey of life, 
hands in life's toil, eyes in looking, tocgue in speaking. 

Wfyt $otoer of tfte Cfjurcft 

July Twenty-fourth 

Jesus Christ bore with invincible patience the 
abuse of his foes and the sorrows and sins of the 
people. . . . 

The secret of his power was his companionship 
with his Father. His piety was not pietism. He 
did not have to retire from the world in order to live 
with his Father. He did at times retire from the 
world for an hour of secret and sacred communion; 
but also he lived in the world and with his Father at 
the same moment. It was when he had just retired 
at the close of a day of intense conflict with his foes 
in the Temple that he said to his friends: " The 
Father abiding in me doeth the works." It was 
just as he was going out to face desertion by his 
friends and the mob howling for his death that he 
said : " Ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, 
and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, 
because the Father is with me." 

When did leader ever show, to use the soldier's 
phrase, " more consideration for his men " than Jesus 
Christ showed in the very last hours of his life? 
When the officers came to arrest him, and his sleep- 
ing friends had failed to keep watch and warn their 
Master of their coming, he put himself between them 
and the guards, gave them the hint to flee, and then 
delivered himself up to death, insuring their escape. 

196 



The whole story of the life of Jesus Christ, from 
the baptism to the resurrection, illustrates his love 
that suffered long and was kind, bore all things, 
trusted always, was hopeful always, and endured 
when hope was no longer possible. 

Neither the teachings nor the life and character of 
Jesus Christ give any warrant for a religion which is 
chiefly negative, whose message is, " Thou shalt 
not." If the Church is losing its power, it is partly 
because it has become a Church of " Thou shalt 
nots." A Church which is a reservoir of courage, 
knowledge, self-control, patience, godliness, brotherly 
kindness, and love will never lose its power over the 
lives and hearts of men. 

Jfirtft fJure, tften peaceable 

July Twenty- fifth 

" First pure, then peaceable." When purity either 
of individual character or national honor demands 
war, then woe to him who cries " Peace! peace! when 
there is no peace." For the nation is not an indi- 
vidual merely, it is a trustee for other individuals. 
I may sacrifice rather than take the life of another, 
if I will; but I may not sacrifice the life of my wife 
or my children if they are in my keeping. I may 
sacrifice my own ease or comfort, but not the trust 
that is reposed in me. And the nation is a trustee. 
It is organized, primarily — this is the very funda- 
mental basis of national life — that it may protect 
its citizens from assault from without or from in- 
justice from within. And when the time comes that 

197 



it can protect its citizens only by war, it is recreant 
if it does not fulfil its trust, buckle on its sword, 
shoulder its musket, and face alike the perils to life 
and the perils to conscience. 

I am not arguing for war, nor for national aggran- 
disement, but I am for this : that we as a nation share 
in the responsibility, not only for our own national 
affairs but for the order and peace of the whole world. 
We are a part of the community of nations. 

Never in the history of mankind has a country 
been saved from corruption unless there were some 
patriots that were willing to suffer for it. 

international Controbersie* 

July Twenty-sixth 
It is the object of Christianity to abolish trial by 
battle between nations, as it has already abolished 
trial by battle between individuals, — not merely to 
mitigate the horrors of war, not merely to reduce the 
occasions of war, not merely to lessen the prepara- 
tions for war, but to put an end to public war abso- 
lutely, as it has put an end to private war absolutely. 
Fights there still are between individuals, but the 
right to fight is not recognized by law. Fights there 
may still continue to be between nations, but the 
right to fight will not be recognized by international 
law when Christianity has wrought among the na- 
tions what it has wrought within the nations. Chris- 
tianity has taken the bowie knife from the belt and 
the pistol from the hip pocket. The individual 

198 



citizen goes unarmed. He submits his controversies 
to an impartial tribunal. He trusts for his protec- 
tion to a disinterested police. When Christianity 
has achieved its mission, nations also will go unarmed. 
They will also submit their controversies to an im- 
partial tribunal, and trust for their protection to the 
cooperation of the nations of Christendom. We shall 
have no navy, except such as is necessary to patrol 
the sea and protect commerce from the brigands of 
the ocean. ... In brief, Christianity has already 
substituted the appeal to law for the appeal to force in 
individual controversies. Its work will not be con- 
summated until it has substituted law for war in 
controversies between nations. 

Sntemattonal Controbersrtes 

July Twenty-seventh 

The pernicious principle that justice between 
nations can be settled by armed conflicts, under regu- 
lations prescribed by international law, necessitates 
the pernicious practice of preparing for war in time 
of peace. This means a standing army and a con- 
siderable navy; and these involve three perils to the 
nation which possesses them. Their mere posses- 
sion incites in the nation an ambition to use them. 
The army wearies of its inactivity; enforced idleness 
becomes monotonous; the private soldier desires 
war because his pay is increased, the officer because 
he has a better chance of promotion, the contractor 
because to him war means increased business, even 
the farmer because he hopes for an immediate sale 

199 



of his wheat and corn, and does not make account of 
the counterbalancing losses of the future. The na- 
tion, thus inciting itself to war by its very prep- 
aration therefor, incites its neighbor also. In the 
West, the unarmed cowboy is the safest, because, if 
a controversy arises between cowboys who are armed, 
each one endeavors to shoot first and so anticipate 
the shot of his neighbor. The armament of one 
nation incites its neighbor to arm also; and each 
increase of military equipment incites the suspicions 
and stirs the latent combativeness across the border. 



3fnternattonal Controtoerste* 

July Twenty-eighth 
The use of force is legitimate in two cases, and 
only two, — when there is no law to which appeal 
can be made, and when the law, though it exists, is 
defied. 

It is true that war affords opportunities for hero- 
ism, and thus opportunity for deeds truly glorious. 
It is true that something resplendent would be lack- 
ing in American history if there were no Bunker Hill, 
no Valley Forge, no Paul Jones or General Jackson, 
no Antietam or Gettysburg. Shall we, then, main- 
tain a restless, burdensome, demoralizing, and in- 
efficient method of securing justice, because under 
such a method men exhibit heroic qualities? Shall 
we retain burdens of which we might be relieved, 
because men proved themselves patient in bearing 
them? Shall we retain sin because if there were no 

200 



sin there could be no redeeming love? Pestilence 
in a city brings glory with it, the glory of nurse and 
physician sacrificing themselves in self-denying ser- 
vice to save the lives of others. Shall we introduce 
pestilence into our cities? A great conflagration 
gives opportunity for glory in the firemen who fight 
the flames and rescue the imperiled. Shall we touch 
the torch to our homes, and wrap the city in a great 
conflagration, for the sake of giving opportunity for 
such glorious heroism? But neither pestilence nor 
conflagration brings with it a tithe of the perils, the 
suffering, the moral distress, which war inevitably 
entails. 

3nternational Controtoergtes 

July Twenty-ninth 

We are a prosperous people, partly because we 
have untold and before-undiscovered wealth, but 
for the most part because the energy which Europe 
puts into military armaments we put into the plow, 
the spade, and the harrow. The forces which on the 
one continent are directed to destruction, on the 
other are directed to construction. 

The consummation of Christian progress will not 
be attained until law is substituted for war, reason 
for force, the spiritual for the animal, Christianity 
for barbarism. 

At Lake Mohonk, as I take it, we are to dream 
dreams and see visions. I make no apology for 
describing my vision. It is this: The time is coming 
when all the military forces of the civilized world 

201 



will be one police force, under one chief of police, 
with one international legislature to decide what is 
the will of the nations, with one international court 
to interpret the official and legal intelligence of the 
nations, and just enough army and just enough navy 
to make the world safe, under a common direction 
and common control — and no more. 

Wfyz JButy anb ©esrtfnp of America 

July Thirtieth 

We call this country a country of self-government. 
What do we mean by that? We mean, primarily, 
this: that we believe that men have wisdom enough 
to judge for themselves and conscience enough to 
respect the rights of their neighbor; and so, while 
we have our police and our armed force, and now and 
again we must call them into activity, in the main we 
depend, in this country, not on the police, not on the 
militia, to maintain the supremacy of the law; we 
believe there is a power in the human conscience and 
we trust to that power; in other words, we believe 
that if a law is a righteous law it will enforce itself. 
Or, to put it still more truly, we believe that God 
stands behind every righteous law, and that we can 
trust God Himself, by the force and operation of 
conscience speaking in man, to enforce righteous 
laws. 

Self-government, trust in the reason and the con- 
science of man, is a distinguishing characteristic of 
this nation. 

202 



I venture the affirmation that there is no nation 
under the sun which has made so thorough, so sys- 
tematic an endeavor by taxing itself to provide edu- 
cation for the poor, the ignorant, those who could not 
educate themselves, broadening that system out 
until it is a comprehensive system of self-education, 
beginning at the kindergarten and not ending until 
the student is graduated from the university. 

Wfje Hutp anb jSesrtmp of America 

July Thirty-first 

This country, with its broad acres, its great wealth, 
its free institutions, its free field, its public-school 
system, its untrammeled religious life, we have not 
kept for ourselves; we have invited other peoples 
of the earth to come and share it with us. I do not 
think there is any other nation that has thrown as 
wide open its gates, and sent out so urgent invita- 
tions; that has said to the foreigner in other lands: 
Come; we have a good thing; come and share it 
with us. And they have come. Irish and German 
and Pole and Hungarian and Italian, they have come 
until we hardly know whether we are an Anglo-Saxon 
people or not. We have not only invited them to 
come, but we have invited them to come and share 
in all that we have. We have said: Our churches 
are for you, our public schools are for you, our 
privileges and our liberties are for you. More than 
that, we have asked them to share with us in the 
responsibilities of our country. We have invited 
them to partnership. 

203 



We are to carry into this new phase of our national 
development the qualities and characteristics of our 
national history in the past. God grant that we may 
leave back of us the persecutings, the corruption, 
the lawlessness, the lynch law, but may carry into the 
future the love of liberty, the confidence in men, the 
belief in conscience, the determination that all men 
shall have an equal chance, the desire to give to all 
men an equal education, the resolve that religion 
shall be free from persecuting domination on the one 
side and from every kind of coercion on the other. 



TOje Butp aub 2Se£tinp of America 

August First 
The new problem which God has given to us 
abroad, is to quicken us to attend better to our prob- 
lems at home. It would be monstrously inconsis- 
tent of us if we set ourselves against corruption, 
against despotism, against ignorance, and against 
narrowness in another nation, and leave them to 
flourish in our own. Our first duty is to fight the 
foes at home. 

What is a Christian nation? Not a nation which 
has no vices, which has no foes within its own borders, 
which is perfect; but a nation which is battling 
against the evil within itself and against the evil 
without itself, and struggling toward a higher and 
better ideal of justice, mercy, truth, reverence. It 
is a nation which is endeavoring to give equal 
rights and equal justice to all men; it is a nation 

204 



which has consideration for the poor, the ignorant, 
the oppressed and the suffering, and which loves 
mercy as well as it does justice; and it is a nation 
which shows reverence not merely nor mainly by 
temples in which its people assemble from time to 
time to pray and praise, but reverence, because it 
seeks to ascertain what are God's laws and to incor- 
porate those laws into its own commonwealth, and 
to conform its national life to those laws, and be- 
cause in some measure it trusts to the forces which 
God has set at work in the world for obedience to 
those laws within its own commonwealth; a nation 
which in its organic, legal, constitutional action does 
justice, loves mercy, and walks reverently and humbly. 
Just in the measure in which it attains this, just in 
the measure in which it sets this ideal before it and 
walks toward this, is it a Christian nation. If a 
Christian is one who serves others, then a Christian 
nation is one which seeks not its own glory, its own 
prestige and power, but seeks the welfare of the human 
race. 

ffifte JHestfebnes* of Rattle 

August Second 

There is a difference between an apple that is 
green and an apple that has a worm at the core. 
Growth will cure the greenness. But the worm will 
grow with the growth of the fruit. There is a dif- 
ference between the rawness of a growing boy and 
the deliberate wickedness of a mature rascal. Time 
and patience will cure the one; they will only foster 
and promote the other. There are children born in 

205 



our homes and immigrants landing on our shores 
whose greatest need is education; but there are also 
in our country enemies of righteousness, who need 
not to be taught, but to be fought. There are men 
who grow rich by robbery; there are others who 
fatten by fostering the appetites and passions of their 
fellow-men — despoilers of manhood and womanhood. 
" Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay 
field to field, till there be no place, that they may be 
placed alone in the midst of the earth! Woe unto 
them that call evil good, and good evil; that put 
darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put 
bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto 
them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in 
their own sight! Woe unto them that are mighty to 
drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong 
drink: which justify the wicked for a reward, and 
take away the righteousness of the righteous from 
him! " All these men are in America. Time and 
patience will not eradicate them nor counteract their 
scheming. Persuasions will not divert them. They 
must be met, exposed, fought. Strength of right- 
eousness must be arrayed against strength of greed 
and vice. And in the battle which ensues soldiers 
must expect to receive blows as well as to give them. 

tEfje ?8le£#e&ne** of JBattle 

August Third 

The days of battle are not over. Only now Per- 
secution has changed his name: he calls himself Pru- 
dence. He whispers to the editor, Do not call evil 

206 



that which public sentiment calls good, nor call that 
bitter which public sentiment calls sweet, or your 
subscription list will be cut down. He whispers to 
the politician, Do not antagonize the corruptionist, 
for he controls the machine, and you will lose your 
nomination and be put out of politics. He whispers 
to the man in the market-place, Why not lay field 
to field and house to house? This is success; and 
nothing succeeds like success. He whispers to the 
preacher, Be tactful, be considerate, be gracious to 
those that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in 
their own sight, or you will lose your influence. And 
this voice of Prudence drowns the voice of the Master 
counseling editor, statesman, merchant, preacher: 
Blessed are they that are persecuted : for theirs is the 
kingdom of heaven. 

tKfje Christian Protfjerfjoob 

August Fourth 
We have a common hope as well as a common faith. 
The future is ours. We believe in it. We look for- 
ward to the time when war shall cease, . . . when all 
the nations shall clasp hands together in a common 
fraternity, and nation shall love nation as brother 
loves brother. We look forward to the time when 
labor shall everywhere be adequately remunerated; 
when, though there may still be poverty, there shall 
be no pauperism; when no men shall go hungry or 
unfed or uncared for; when wealth shall be so far 
equitably distributed that everywhere there shall be 
comfort without the perils of luxury. We look for- 
ward to the time when commerce shall no longer be a 

207 



battle of man against man; when no longer men shall 
ill-treat one another and prey upon one another and 
crowd one another out of the way, as the children 
crowd one another in Italy when the traveler flings 
down a handful of coin for them. We look forward 
to the time when commerce shall everywhere be free, 
and man shall not reach out his hand except to clasp 
his neighbor's hand in fellowship, and all trade and 
all industry shall be mutually helpful and mutually 
supporting. We look forward to the time when 
government shall be an endeavor — an honest and a 
sincere endeavor — by men to find out what right- 
eousness is, and what God's law is, and to enthrone 
conscience in the nation, and make a social conscience, 
as now conscience is enthroned in many an individual 
and made a personal conscience. We look forward 
to the time when education shall seek only the high- 
est and divinest, and in all its seeking still shall seek 
after God and God's righteousness. . . . We look 
forward to the time when every gunship shall carry 
peace, and guns no longer; when it shall be as rare 
to see a fort at a harbor as now it is to see a port- 
cullis at the entrance of a home; when it shall be as 
rare to see an armed troop to protect the nation as it 
is, in a civilized community, to see a pistol in a hip- 
pocket to protect an individual. All the armor of 
the armed man and all the garments rolled in blood 
shall be burned in one great bonfire. " For unto us 
a child is born, and unto us a Son is given, and the 
government shall be upon his shoulders, and he shall 
be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Ever- 
lasting Father, Prince of Peace." 

208 



®fje Christian Ptotfjerijoob 

August Fifth 

Brotherhood means sympathy for the lame, the 
blind, and the halt of the community: for the men 
and women of weak body who have not the physical 
strength to keep their place in the march, but are 
ever falling behind; for the men and women of weak 
mind — of poor taste, ill judgment, untrained intel- 
lect — who are no match in the struggle for their 
shrewder neighbors; for the men and women of un- 
educated conscience, of feeble will and strong pas- 
sions, who of all life's invalids are the most pitiable 
and the most need hospital treatment. Brotherhood 
looks upon crime as Jesus looked upon it, as a disease 
to be cured; and seeks to make all punishment 
remedial. The spirit of brotherhood toward the 
criminal is always, " Brethren, even if a man be over- 
taken in any trespass, ye who are spiritual, restore 
such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to thy- 
self lest thou also be tempted." Brotherhood may 
punish the wrong-doer, but it will punish never for 
revenge, always to protect society, to prevent the 
repetition of the wrong, and to cure, if possible, the 
wrong-doer. 

Life does not depend on a strong will; it depends 
on a strengthened will, and you can have God for the 
asking. 



209 



®!je Christian Jgrotfjerfjoob 

.4 ugust Sixth 

A brotherhood of man — why a brotherhood of 
man? I can understand why I am brother to a man 
who is congenial to me, who thinks as I think and 
likes what I like ; or why I am brother to the man who 
belongs to the same state or the same nation and has 
the same political interests that I have; or even why 
I am brother to the man who is neighbor to me and 
with whom I come in perpetual contact. But why 
am I brother to all men? Why am I brother to the 
man against whom I brush in the street-car, whom I 
shall never see again? Why am I brother to the man 
on the other side of the globe? What basis is there 
for saying that I am brother to all men? Because 
deeper than consanguinity, deeper than race rela- 
tionship, deeper than a common language, is this 
sublime fact: that we, all of us, rich and poor, black 
and white, American and Filipino, are children of 
God, made in his image, or at least being made in 
his image. This it is, and only this, that makes us 
brothers. 

You are not one of a brotherhood if there be no 
Father who binds us together. You might better 
pluck the sun out of the heavens and expect the moons 
and the planets to revolve still in their ceaseless 
round harmonious with one another than to take God 
out of the universe or out of the faith of men in the 
universe and think the faith in brotherhood will abide. 



210 



je jLkotfjerfjoob of illan 

August Seventh 

We have seen a religious life and influence going 
out from ten thousand pulpits, bearing its witness 
against sin in the home, against sin in government, 
against sin in private, against sin in every depart- 
ment and phase of life. We have seen an American 
people rousing themselves and declaring that this 
shall be a government of the people, for the people, 
and by the people, and not a government of the 
machine, for the machine, and by the machine; and 
seen an agitation, sometimes blind, sometimes ig- 
norant, and yet truly divinely inspired, working to 
write the Golden Rule into every factory and into 
every machine-shop, and into every store and into 
every market-place, until laborer and capitalist come 
to understand that they are partners in a common 
enterprise, and until the church bells that ring out 
the song of the Fatherhood of God on every Sunday 
shall key the factory bells to the same great note, 
and the chimes shall run across the continent, from 
ocean to ocean, of the brotherhood of men in every 
week-day. 

©fte jBlrotfjerftoob of 4Hatt 

/l ugust Eighth 

The problem of our time is, How are men who are 
sons of God to live together in one human brother- 
hood? This is the question of the nineteenth and 
twentieth centuries, and this is preeminently the 

211 



question which is to be answered by practical experi- 
ment in the United States of America. 

Into the United States God has poured a vast 
heterogeneous population. . . . This heterogeneous 
people occupy a land which embraces every variety 
of climate, from that of Northern Europe to that of 
Middle Asia; and every variety of wealth, from that 
of the wheat fields of Russia to that of the silver 
mines of Golconda. Its fertile soil gives every variety 
of production, from the pine-trees of Maine to the 
orange groves of Florida. . . . Into this continent 
God has thrown this heterogeneous people, in this 
effervescent and seething mass, that in the struggle 
they may learn the laws of social life. African, 
Malay, Anglo-Saxon, and Celt, ignorant and culti- 
vated, rich and poor, God flings us together under 
institutions which inextricably intermix us, that he 
may teach us by experience the meaning of the 
brotherhood of man. 

All our national problems are problems of human 
brotherhood. The question that lay before this 
nation in 1784 was a question of human brother- 
hood: How shall these colonies, with their diverse 
interests, their petty jealousies, their animosities, 
live together in one free nation? And our fathers 
were wise enough to deal with it, and, on the whole, 
wisely solved it. There came the slavery question: 
What shall we do with these four millions of slave 
population? What does brotherhood require of us? 
And God gave us the strength and wisdom to give 
the right answer to that through terrible war. There 
came the question: What does human brotherhood 

212 



owe to the ignorant? The public school is our reply- 
to that. The community owes education to the 
children of its poor. There came the question: 
What shall be the religious institutions of such a 
community? The answer was, A free Church in a 
free State; religion must be spontaneous, and the 
religious institutions must spring spontaneously from 
the needs and the constitutions of the individuals who 
constitute the community. 

Criminate: (Enemies; of feocial ©rber 

August Ninth 

Not far from my home in the West, thirty odd 
years ago, there had been what was known as Lost 
Creek. This creek emptied itself over the prairie, 
making a great marsh, and so long as the marsh re- 
mained the whole neighborhood was infested with 
malaria and typhoid fevers. It finally occurred to 
some wise men to drain the swamp. The creek was 
.drained into the Wabash River, and the disease 
ceased. The object of our punitive system should 
be, not to protect society from the criminal classes, 
but to drain the swamp; to stop the multiplication 
of criminals; to reform the criminals created by our 
bad social system, and to protect ourselves only from 
the small remnant which is then left. 

The majority of criminals fall into crime through 
either inheritance, evil education, evil companion- 
ship, or an abnormal physical and intellectual as well 
as moral organization. Disease of body, of intel- 

213 



lect, of emotions of will, disease inherited through 
successive generations and aggravated by vicious 
social conditions, all combine to make the criminal 
class what it is. Humanity as well as wisdom in- 
dicates the duty of society, — first, to remove as far 
as possible the causes which tend to generate crim- 
inals, and, secondly, to set in operation as vigorously 
as possible causes which will tend to cure them, — 
to give them saner emotions, a better intelligence, a 
stronger will; to counteract the influences of bad 
heredity and bad environment; to develop habits of 
virtue and industry, at first under coercion, but as 
rapidly as possible under the inspiration of self- 
respect, ambition, and hope. 

Jesus Christ uses the deterrent power of fear very 
sparingly, relies himself, and bids his followers rely, 
on the inspiring power of hope and love, enkindling 
in the despairing and the outcast a new aspiration, 
and inspiring them to a new life. 

Criminate: Cnemieg of Social ©tttx 

August Tenth 
Christ . . . never put a halo of romance around the 
wrong-doer; he pardoned guilt, but never palliated 
it. . . . Punishment there must be, and sometimes 
severe punishment; but the spirit which administers 
it must be, not the spirit of revenge, euphemistically 
called retributive justice, but the spirit of love seek- 
ing redemption. ... In cases of imprisonment the 
whole purpose of the prison authorities, from the 
entrance of the criminal into the prison, should be his 

214 



reformation. . . . The industries of the prison should 
all be adjusted with reference, not to making money, 
but to making men. . . . The religious exercises 
and the night schools, which should be connected 
with every prison, should have the same object in 
view, — the reformation of the offender. . . . Under 
the redemptive system he comes out of prison 
with the affirmation of a competent tribunal that 
he has been cured; in other words, with a doctor's 
certificate. 

A man might as well attempt to make a garden by 
digging out or cutting off all the weeds and planting 
no seeds as to attempt to make a good man or a good 
community by cutting off the outcrop of vices without 
inculcating the germinant seeds of virtue. 



§2>in anb lite Cute 

August Eleventh 

When Christ says to his disciples, " Whosesoever 
sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; whose- 
soever sins ye retain, they are retained," his meaning 
is, My disciples will be responsible for the contin- 
uance of sin in this world. If they will follow my 
example, imbibe my spirit, and accept my compan- 
ionship, they will be able to abolish sin and bring in 
the kingdom of God. The responsibility is theirs. 
If they do not abolish sin, it will not be abolished. 
Let me add that it can never be abolished except by 
the spirit of self-sacrifice. 

215 



Repentance is forsaking sin, not merely lamenting 
over it. 

In my judgment, the best remedy for that com- 
placency, not to say that self-conceit, which is char- 
acteristic of the present age is not in preaching against 
sin, but in presenting such ideals of character and of 
conduct drawn from the life and character of Jesus 
Christ as compel men to see how far they fall short of 
the true, the divine ideal of those who are called to 
be sons of God. 

&>in anto 3Jts Cute 

August Twelfth 

The Oriental house was built around an open court. 
The rooms on the ground floor were porches opening 
on this court. A Pharisee invited Christ to dine 
with him. He accepted the invitation. The vil- 
lagers trooped in and filled the open square. He 
reclined at the table, his naked feet stretched out 
behind him. A woman of the town crept in among 
the villagers and listened. Something in his words 
or in his manner stirred the dormant life in her, 
fanned the dead hope into a flame, awakened remorse 
for the past and sorrow for the present, and the great 
tears gathered in her eyes, and then fell down, drop 
by drop, upon the naked feet of the Master. Startled 
that tears from such eyes as hers should fall on feet 
such as his, she kneeled, and, taking the long tresses 
of her hair, wiped the polluting drops away, and then, 
finding herself unresisted, took from her bosom a box 

216 



of ointment, broke it open, and anointed his feet 
with it. The Pharisee, to whom she was an aban- 
doned woman, looked on amazed, and said : " This 
man is no prophet, or he would have known what 
manner of woman she is; for she is a sinner." But 
Christ said: "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in 
peace." The heart of womanhood is not easily ex- 
tinguished. . . . Love can call her back to life again. 
She is not abandoned of God; she is not abandoned 
of herself. Why should we abandon her? 

Not until our civilization shall have wrought out 
in life what Hawthorne wrought out in " The Scarlet 
Letter " — not until the man takes his stand in the 
pillory by the woman, and the scarlet letter is seen 
on the breast of the one as of the other, and both bear 
the ineffable shame, and each help the other back to 
the ineffable glory — shall we find Christ's remedy. 

QHje Christian* 

August Thirteenth 
The men that started out to redeem the world were 
called in scorn Messianists, Christians. We have 
taken the word and redeemed it, and to-day to be a 
follower of that Christ, to-day to belong to those who 
have abolished slavery, ameliorated war, fed the 
hungry, turned the thought of men respecting in- 
sanity from thinking it a crime to thinking it a form 
of disease, who have transformed their thought of 
crime itself — to be a world redeemer, to belong to 
this fellowship, is a splendid thing. You and I are 

217 



not worthy to belong to it. We do not do enough; 
our ideals are not high enough; our hopes are not 
radiant enough; our purposes are not strong enough; 
our life is not noble enough; our service is not good 
enough. But we belong to it. And if there are any 
of you here to-day who believe with us that God is 
good and is in His world making it better, if with us 
you have hope of a final victory, if with us you love 
and may be loyal to our Leader, if with us you wish 
to share in the glory of the Cross that was once a 
shame, if with us you wish to have some part in the 
great brotherhood of the common lot, our doors are 
open and we will welcome you. 

CfttlBt tDttfj ®S 

August Fourteenth 
The boy goes to school, and as he takes his seat in 
the wagon he throws a kiss back to his mother, and 
as the wagon goes down the road he takes out his 
handkerchief and waves it to her, and the last thing 
he sees as the turn of the road hides the house from 
view is that mother standing upon the porch waving 
to him. During the school term he keeps that 
thought of mother with him, and it goes with him 
wherever he goes; it is the angel presence that guides 
him, it is the angel presence that guards him; he is 
carrying that mother with him into his daily, hourly 
life: but it is the mother he saw when he left home. 
Now the Christ that we carry with us through our 
life is the Christ we saw in Gethsemane, the Christ 
that suffered on the cross. 

218 



Departing from his disciples, Christ left them 
promises, reiterated promises. " Lo," he said, " I 
am with you always, even unto the end of the world." 
" I will not leave you alone; I will dwell in your 
hearts, I will dwell in your lives." 

{Rje Hato of progress; 

August Fifteenth 

You know how sometimes in the spring you wake 
in the morning and look out of the window, and you 
are surprised to see all of the trees in blossom; it is 
almost as if in one night they have clothed themselves 
with their spring glory. But there is no blossom on 
apple-bough or peach-branch that has not its history 
in the winter of the year, and in the autumn that 
preceded. And so, when the time of Christ's glory 
shall come, when war shall cease and rapine and 
murder shall be no more, and when he shall be King 
of kings and Lord of lords, crowned over all, though 
it be with a sudden burst of glory, — it shall be as the 
pond-lilies burst into bloom when the sun touches 
them with its mystic warmth: the lily has its root 
in the pond, and the glory of that revealed Christ 
will have its root and its development in all the 
history of the past. . . . 

Progress, Paul says, comes from Christ, we grow 
from him; progress is carried on by successive sup- 
plies from Christ as the vital force; through every 
joint of supply this force of Christ is working; and 
Christ is the ideal into which at last we are to grow. 

219 



®f)e Religion of ^umanttp 

August Sixteenth 

You cannot take the divinity out of Jesus Christ 
and leave an object worthy of universal reverence 
and universal following. 

Nor can you take the divinity out of Jesus Christ 
and leave the story of his life or the lesson of his 
teaching intact. For everywhere and always he 
was the subject of his own preaching. He proclaimed 
himself. You may tear out the Fourth Gospel 
from the covers of your New Testament, and fling it 
away; you may base your faith on the synoptic 
Gospels only, and still you will find Christ central 
— and Christ as the Lord and Master of the human 
race. You will find him in his first sermon preached 
at Nazareth pointing to himself and saying, " I am 
the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecy of 
the coming Messiah. " You will find him in the 
second sermon declaring, " I am the foundation; he 
that builds in obedience to me, builds on rock; he 
that does not, builds on sand." You will find him 
in the third sermon pointing to himself as the One 
that shall come to judge the world. You will find 
him in the fourth sermon declaring of himself that he 
is the bread of life ; and that he who would five must 
live, not by the teaching of Jesus, not by the example 
of Jesus, but by spiritual unity with Jesus the Christ. 
He makes himself the standard of duty; he has but 
one command: " Follow thou me." He makes him- 
self the promise of reward: "Where I am, there 
ye shall be also." He makes himself the comfort 

220 



which calms the troubled soul: " Come unto me, and 
ye shall find rest to your soul." 

W&t 3Reitgion of ©umanttp 

August Seventeenth 

Once, in conducting prayers in the Inebriate Asy- 
lum at Binghamton, I read without comment the 
seventh chapter of Romans: " What I would, that 
I do not; but what I hate, that do I." At the close 
of the service half a dozen men clustered around the 
desk and asked me where that chapter was. " That 
describes our condition exactly/' said they. Yes, it 
describes the condition of all struggling humanity 
exactly. We know what the truth is. What we 
want is power to do that which we know we ought to 
do : power to control this tongue that speaks first and 
lets the tardy thought come after; power to control 
this miserable vanity; power to break down the walls 
of pride and prejudice; power to make the animal in 
us servant of the spiritual and divine, . . . souls full 
of the Spirit of God, and therefore of goodness, and 
vanquishing ignorance, superstition, sin, as the eve- 
ning lamp vanquishes the darkness of the night, by 
rays of sunshine borrowed from the sun. 

The young man goes down the way that leads unto 
death, not because it is his opinion that that is a safe 
and prudent road to travel; but . . . because his ap- 
petites and his passions have never been broken to 
the saddle and the bridle, and, Mazeppa-like, he is 
bound to the beast that carries him whither it will. 

221 



I know that I need a Divine Captain, a Helper, a 
Strength, outside of myself. When I look at my own 
soul, when I think of my own experience, when I 
consider my own life, I cry, wretched man that I 
am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? 
It is only when I look out of myself and see some one 
else stronger than I am, and stronger than the world, 
— it is only then that I cry, Thanks be to God which 
giveth me the victory! 

®fje Religion of ©umamtp 

August Eighteenth 
Christian faith, the faith of your fathers, the faith 
that has inspired the church through all these ages, 
sets forth a God-man, a God manifested in man, a 
God coming down to the earth and living in human 
guise, dwelling among men that God may be made 
known to man. What is it the world wants? What 
is it you and I most need in our deepest nature? Is 
it a better man, a nobler type of humanity, a finer 
hero? No! No! What we want is God. What the 
orphan world has ever been wanting is God. And 
what this Gospel reveals is God: a God who has torn 
aside the veil that he may be seen; that we may 
come to see, and so may be brought to know, him. . . . 
It is not the man Jesus, it is the Christ of God, who 
has won his way to the heart of humanity and given 
to it a victory-winning ally. 

What the world needs for its redemption is not a 
nobler past, but a living presence. That which this 

222 



Gospel gives to us, that which our faith gives to us, is 
a living Christ, a risen Christ. 

Jesus Christ is the supreme manifestation of God 
in past history, and the source and inspiration of all 
that is best in subsequent manifestations of God in 
Christian history. 

Jfaitf) in <&ob tijrougtj Working untt) £nm 

A ugust Nineteen th 

The difficulty about religious discussion has been 
that most of it has been fighting about the unknown. 
We have battled about the things we did not know 
about; much as if the scientists, instead of consider- 
ing how they can use electricity to light us, to carry 
us, and to do our errands for us, should get into hot 
controversy as to whether it is matter or force, and 
excommunicate one another, because one thought it 
was matter and another thought it was force; or as 
if the doctors, instead of considering how they can 
promote health and how they can cure disease and 
conquer death, should get into a hot discussion about 
what is the nature of life and what is the nature of 
death. 

We know very little, — very, very little. What of 
it? I am in a narrow cell. Shall I beat myself 
against its stone walls, or rejoice in the little ray of 
sunshine that streams through its narrow window, 
in the assurance it gives me that there is glorious 
sunlight outside? J stand on a small oasis. Shall 
I put myself upon the part of it where the sun will 

223 



beat down upon my head, and where the hot breath 
of the sirocco will pour upon me with its blastings, 
or shall I turn back and find the shade of the palm 
and drink from the spring of hope that rises forever 
in all human hearts if they will but drink of it? I 
am cast away on a small island. All around me rolls 
the great ocean, whose domain I know not, whose 
farther boundary I cannot see. Sometimes the fog 
rolls in thick, and then I see nothing; sometimes it 
lifts, and I look across the blue a little farther: but 
far as I may look, I see but a little way, and immensity 
and ignorance lie beyond. I will not go and stand 
upon that shore and spend my days and hours in 
repining because I do not comprehend the round 
globe of which it is a little part, but I will find some 
shipwrecked brother upon its coast, hungry, naked, 
needy, and in giving him some help I will find com- 
fort and joy. 

Jfatti) in #oti 

August Twentieth 

I put myself on board an ocean steamer, although I 
know mariners are careless and sometimes drunken; 
I have confidence in human nature. Not in what 
the eye has seen; not in what the ear has heard; 
not in what the hand has handled: but faith in the 
great good Lord and in what he has put into man, — 
in the conscience, in the fidelity, in the truth, of an 
invisible spirit of man. Is it strange, is it incon- 
ceivable, that I should have like touch with the in- 
visible Spirit of God? There are to-day, and there 
have been in the world's history, more men and 

224 



women to bear witness to the touch of Christ's spirit 
and the reality of God's life in the soul than men to 
bear testimony to the existence of Martin Luther, 
Raphael, Cromwell, or Abraham Lincoln. 

I do not think there is a child in this house who is 
not wise enough to know that to know Mother is to 
work for Mother and work with Mother. But there 
are children of greater growth in this house who do 
not know that the way to know God is to work with 
God, to do God's will, to suffer for him, to go down 
into life where humanity is wrestling with suffering, 
take its tears, beseech a share in its burdens, enter 
into its life, join in its redemption. 

Fellowship with the Eternal is the inspiration of 
life. 

tClje CimrcJ)'* ©ne Jfounbatton 

August Twenty-first 

In the Israelitish economy there were two silver 
trumpets, and when both those trumpets were blown 
the children of Israel all gathered together, and that 
great gathering of the children of Israel, brought 
together by the blowing of the silver trumpets, was * 
the Jewish ecclesia, the great assembly, the called- 
together. Throughout all the centuries two silver 
trumpets have been blowing — duty and aspiration ; 
and all those who, hearing the silver call of duty and 
the silver call of aspiration, have gathered together 
that they may follow where God leads them, make 
the church of Christ. 

225 



You may stay away from the church, you may shut 
your mother's Bible and never look at it, but you 
cannot get away from God's revelation. He follows 
you everywhere. Wherever the sun shines, wherever 
the rain falls, wherever the gentle dew distills, wher- 
ever the conscience speaks, wherever it applauds you 
for noble doing, wherever it reproaches you for evil 
doing, wherever it calls on you to cry, Shame! shame! 
on the fraudulent action, wherever it calls you to 
cry, Hero! hero! to the heroic man, there is the voice 
of God speaking in your conscience, there is the rev- 
elation of God uttering itself to you through nature 
or through yourself. The revelation is a universal 
revelation — as wide as the human race, as universal 
as the human conscience. 

W&z Cfjurrfj'* ©nt Jfountration 

August Twenty-second 

This transforming power of a regnant, personal, 
indwelling Christ, this it is which must make the 
unity of the church of Christ. How many more 
years shall we have to read our New Testament be- 
fore we light on the words, often repeated there, 
" One in Christ Jesus "? . . . The united church of 
Christ cannot be wrought by a hierarchy, and it 
cannot be wrought by a creed. It is to be wrought 
by life. We shall yet be one; nay, we dare say are 
one, in our common experience and in our common 
allegiance. . . . When we begin to speak of creeds 
and doctrines we divide, but when we come into that 
realm of experience out of which all creeds and doc- 

226 



trines have grown, we are one in our faith, one in our 
personal experience, one in Christ Jesus. Paul puts 
the order of unity thus: " One Lord, one faith, one 
baptism." We never shall get the one common sym- 
bol of church life, whether it be creed or ritual, 
until we have got unity in our Christian experience, 
and worship one God of enduring and infinite love 
and mercy; and then we shall find it very easily. . . . 
It is in vain we hammer our creeds together until our 
hearts are one. 

Cooperation in Christian activity is Paul's remedy 
for schism and sectarianism in the church of Christ. 

(Cfje CinucJj's. ©ne Jfounbation 

August Twenty-third 

It is this indwelling power of a Christ transforming 
men and women, making them over again, brooding 
them with his own great forth-putting personality, — 
it is this which is the power of the church. . . . The 
church is the body of Christ, and Christ dwells in it. 
... I do not forget its imperfections, its coldnesses, its 
waywardnesses, its follies, and its faults. But, rec- 
ognizing them all, I still appeal to you that are not in 
the church of Christ, and that have often, perhaps, 
cast your satire or your scorn upon it. Out of what 
workshops come there greater moral forces to-day 
than out of the churches of Christ, as they are in the 
United States? Blot them out of existence to-day; 
make every pulpit dumb, make silent every worship- 
ing sound going up to God ; drape all the chimes with 
black, that they ring no sweet music to the ear on 

227 



Sabbath morning; lock every sanctuary door; and 
how long would you be able to generate the forces 
that can stay intemperance, Mormonism, ignorance, 
superstition, and vermicular and political corruption? 



Wbt CimrrfT* <©ne Jfounbatton 

August Twenty -fourth 

Our Leader sat with His twelve at a table and 
bound them by a great oath in that hour of fellow- 
ship to be His followers, and we, too, gather at the 
table in a sacrament and oath of fellowship and of 
loyalty to Him. 

As you individually and personally eat this bread 
and drink this wine, remember what Christ said: 
" Except a man eat my flesh and drink my blood, he 
hath no life in him." It is only as we take Christ 
into our own inner selves, as we make him bone of 
our bone, sinew of our sinew, flesh of our flesh, that 
we are truly his and he is truly ours. When Christ 
came to the tomb wherein Lazarus lay buried, and 
the stone was rolled away, he did not preach him a 
sermon about physiology, anatomy, and human life. 
He said, " Lazarus, come forth! " — breathed life 
into him; and, so inspired, Lazarus came out into 
the light again. As you take this symbol, take the 
living Christ himself — not the memory of him, not 
the hope of him, but, through the memory and through 
the hope, the sense of the personal, transforming 
Christ. 

228 



The soul has its food as well as the body; Christ 
is the soul's food. We are Christians as we grow into 
his likeness by growing in his fellowship and com- 
panionship. We feed on Christ when we live under 
the direct, personal influence of his spiritual presence. 

Wfyt $otoer of'tfte &ep* 

August Twenty-fifth 

Democracy rests on the fundamental truth that 
man as man — not royal man, nor aristocratic man, 
nor priestly man, nor Anglo-Saxon man, but man as 
man — was made in the image of God, and to man 
as man are given the keys of political, as of natural, 
dominion. Whenever, wherever, and howsoever this 
divine order is violated, the result is always disas- 
trous, whether the imperial power which idleness, 
cowardice, or self-distrust substitutes for a brave 
acceptance of the responsibility of the keys be a 
Caesar in Rome, a Bourbon in France, or a boss in 
America. 

The church of Christ may be said to represent the 
kingdom of heaven on earth, and the keys of this 
kingdom, the keys of the church of Christ, are given, 
not to the Pope or priesthood, Protestant or Papal, 
but to the entire Christian discipleship. The church 
is a Christian republic; and whenever the great body 
of disciples attempts to rid itself of the responsi- 
bility of the keys which God has laid upon it, and 
passes that responsibility over to a hierarchy, what- 
ever its description, disaster and death ensue. 

229 



As the foundation of the Christian church is laid 
upon men's souls transformed by the transforming 
power of God, in vacillating Simons made into rock- 
like Peters by God's indwelling, so the authority in 
Christ's church is vested in the whole body of those 
thus transformed. 



tEfje ipotoer of tfje luptf 

A ugust Twenty-sixth 

Love is Christ's creed, frankness his liturgy, and 
service his hierarchy. Christ puts the keys of gov- 
ernment, of worship, and of life into the hands of his 
disciples, requires them to assume the responsibility 
and to find their way to government, to liturgy, and 
to life for themselves. 

The kingdom of God, which is in nature, in the 
state and in the church, is most of all in the individual 
conscience and life. To each soul personally God 
gives the keys of his own destiny and bids him un- 
lock life's closed doors; puts in his hands the rudder 
and bids him steer his bark; gives him the tools and 
bids him model his own character. 

God help us all, in a humble but trusting and 
courageous spirit, to accept the sublime trust he has 
reposed in us, and to prove ourselves worthy of it 
by our loyalty to him who has bestowed it upon us 
and to that life of service to which by this trust he 
calls us! 

230 



£battmtum fcp (Urototf) 

August Twenty-seventh 
You . . . cannot build a business without care and 
energy and force, and battle and struggle contin- 
ually. You might as well expect the marble of the 
sculptor to grow a statue; you might as well expect 
the painter's canvas to grow to be a beautiful face 
with no touch of the painter's brush, with no exer- 
cise of the painter's skill, as to expect this child, this 
country, this man, to grow to perfection without toil, 
without labor. 

If your child is already what you wish him to be, 
only you would like more of that in him, growth will 
take care of it. But if there is any evil, if there is 
childlike despotism in dominion over a younger sister, 
if there is greed in the dividing of the apple or the 
cake, if there is vanity over the new dress or the new 
shoes, if there is pride showing itself in childlike 
haughtiness — leave those alone and they will grow 
with his growth and strengthen with his strength 
until they come to manhood manifestations. 

If you are what you want to be, you have only to 
wait for growth. But if there is in you a pride, a 
passion, a vanity, anything that in your inmost soul 
you abhor, growth will never change it. Growth will 
make an oak out of an acorn, but growth never will 
make a wheat field out of Canada thistles. 

If men are living after the things of the flesh; if 
they are living according to worldly standards and 
according to fleshly appetites, no growth, no develop- 

231 



ment, will make them better ; they will grow in grace 
only if the Spirit of God is given to them, if the 
Divine Spirit is dwelling in them. 

g>albatton bp (grace 

August Twenty-eighth 

All life is working out the gift of God; that is, the 
gift of character. Business — what do we go into 
business for? To make fortunes? Was man made 
for money? Life is to make men. The factory, 
the court-room, the polling-place, the market — they 
are all educators; and whether we will or not, we 
are learning in life's great school lessons of honor or 
dishonor, virtue or vice, truth or falsehood, character 
for good or character for evil. The mechanic holds 
the knife on the grindstone, and the knife says, " How 
I am polishing off this grindstone! " No! the grind- 
stone is to put an edge on the knife. And all business 
of life is to put an edge on character, and temper into 
character. We learn our heroism by the battles of life. 
What are " means of grace" ? The Bible is a means 
of grace; the church is a means of grace; the family is 
a means of grace ; but also the world and the polling- 
booth — they are means either of grace or of disgrace. 

Character is the end of life, and all that we live for 
is manhood and womanhood. We are to live, not 
that we may have things, but that He may make us 
better men and women; not that we may have 
liberty, but that out of our liberty there may come a 
better growth; not that we may have education, if 
by education we mean schools and books, but that 

232 



out of schools and books there may emerge a nobler 
manhood; not even that we may have religion, if 
by religion we mean creeds and rituals and churches 
and preachers; these are of use only as they make 
men more worthy to be called sons of God. Service 
is the universal duty; character is the sole standard 
of values. 

Valuation bv <©race 

August Twenty-ninth 
God offers to raise us up above the power of sin, 
above the power of temptation, above the sordid 
nature of life, that we may walk in the elevation in 
which He walked. Do you want it? He offers to 
make us sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, 
not by and by, but now and here. Blessed are those 
that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they 
shall be filled. Do you so hunger? The dove waits, 
and the voice, and it does but need the baptism of 
consecration and the dove would alight on your head 
and on mine, and the voice would come out of the 
now silent heaven and speak to us as it spoke to him 
of olden time, " You are my beloved son." But we 
bid the dove to wait and the voice to be still till we 
have grown a little older and gone a little farther. 
As one touched by some sorceress hand and turned 
from prince to brute waits for the hour of deliverance 
and restoration, so we live our sensual and animal, 
or half-sensual and half-animal, lives, while He that 
would redeem us, would lift the world off, would 
touch with his divine wand our nature, waits our 
permission and consent. 

233 



tBfje Secret of Character 

August Thirtieth 
The hope of America, your hope, my hope, is not 
in inheritance. ... It is not in strong government, 
in politics, or in family, or in vigorous self-will. It 
is not in public schools, unless the public school 
learns how to educate the conscience as well as the 
intellect. It is in God who may use all these, and 
through all these may speak to the souls of His chil- 
dren. 

Character is not due to inheritance, will-power, 
culture: it is due to the life of God, wrought by His 
peace in the soul of man. Born, not of blood-in- 
heritance; not of the will of the flesh-government; 
not of the will of man-education; but of the God who 
is brooding the race, of the God who has come into 
life in Christ, of the God who stands at the door of 
your heart and your life, saying: " Let me come into 
you and make you a child of God." 

a Softer unto g>atoatfon 

August Thirty-first 

"For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, 
forever." — Matt. vi. 13. But ye shall receive power, after that 
the Holy Ghost is come upon you." — Acts i. 8. " For I am not 
ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto 
salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also 
to the Greek." — Romans i. 16. 

What is peculiar about the Bible and the religion 
which the Bible represents is that the Book and the 
religion hold as in their hand a gift of power be- 

234 



stowed upon humanity. All the significance of the 
miracles of the Old Testament and the New Testa- 
ment lies in this, that they are the verification, mani- 
festation, exhibitions of a power more than human, 
witnesses to a help that lies beyond humanity, but 
which is extended to humanity. It is in this sense 
that we Christians hold strenuously to the doctrine 
that the religion of the Bible is a supernatural relig- 
ion. It is a matter of small account whether man 
thinks this or that or the other miracle was wrought, 
but it is a matter of very great account whether he 
believes there is any hand stretched down from heaven 
to help man in his impotence, or any light streaming 
down from heaven to guide man in his darkness. 

What is a miracle? Do I not believe in miracles? 
I believe they are going on all the time! What I 
object to is the narrowness which shuts miracles up 
between the covers of a Bible and puts them over into 
one principal epoch and one special time. What is 
a miracle? Not the manifestation of an extraordi- 
nary power — but an extraordinary manifestation 
of an ordinary power. 

a $otoer unto gmlbatum 

September First 

Take from the Old Testament history this thought, 
that God is using his power for his own children, and 
you take out the very foundation of that history, 
and leave nothing but a crumbling mass of disjointed 
and insignificant stones. The history of Israel is 
not the history of what the Jews did or Jewish great 

235 



men did, but of what a power not themselves was 
doing for them. ... " Power belongeth unto thee, 
God, but unto thee also belongeth mercy." 

The teaching of the Gospel, then, is this: that we 
live, move, and have our being in a great reservoir of 
forces. We reach out our hand and lay hold on them, 
and make them serve us. We do this with material 
forces; we do it with moral and spiritual forces. We 
lay hold on them, and make them our own. We are 
strong by using a strength that is not our own. 

September Second 

What God has given the human race in the Bible 
is not a substitute for thought, but something which 
will stimulate men to think. 

The Bible yields its treasure only to him who digs 
for it as for a hid treasure; the promise of the Bible 
is only to him who seeks and knocks. No age can 
do this seeking, this knocking, for another. 

It is a collection of the most spiritual utterances, 
of the most spiritual men, of the most spiritual race, 
of past time. You are to come to it as such a col- 
lection. It is as such that you are to study and take 
advantage of it — as such a record of spiritual ex- 
periences. 

Have your own Bible, into which your life shall 
be woven, around which your spiritual associations 
shall cluster, and which shall become sacred to you, 

236 



not so much for the voice that spake to Abraham, to 
Moses, to David, to Isaiah, or Paul, so many cen- 
turies ago, but for the voice that has spoken to 
you — through Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, or 
Paul — in your own life-experience. 

Jlfjat i* tfce Jgifale? 

September Third 
Familiarize yourself with the Bible. It is a coy 
acquaintance. It does not let every one into its 
heart, or disclose to the chance acquaintance the 
secret of its power. You must love it. If you are 
to love it you must acquaint yourself with it. You 
must take it with you into your experience. You 
must make it the man of your counsel in your per- 
plexity; you must go to it for comfort in your sorrow; 
you must find in it inspiration when the deadening 
process of life has brought you earthward; you must 
seek in it those experiences for which your own heart 
and soul hunger. You must let it write itself across 
your heart. So, and only so, can you make this 
Bible a useful, life-giving book to you. 

There never was a book that has produced the 
effect in the world that the Bible has produced — 
never; never a book that has carried the comfort 
that has carried to the sorrowing one, the inspira- 
tion that has carried to the downcast one, uplifting 
those that were fallen under the power of temptation 
and sin, or a power to give power to those that were 
paralyzed, to open the ears of those deaf to spiritual 
truth. And it still has power. 

237 



OTjat in ti)e JSfble? 

September Fourth 

The truths that lie behind the book, they make 
the Bible. Such truths as these: that man is im- 
mortal — not that he is going to live a thousand or a 
hundred thousand years after death, but that he 
has in him a spirit that death cannot and does not 
touch; that he is under other laws than those that 
are physical, that he is under the great moral laws of 
right and wrong; that there is a God who knows, 
thinks, feels, loves; and that there is a helping hand 
reached down out of heaven to lay hold of and to 
give help to every struggling man seeking, working, 
praying, wrestling toward a nobler manhood; an 
immortal spirit, a personal God, a forgiveness of 
sins: — that is the Bible. 

In the Bible you come into association and fellow- 
ship with men who are living in the spiritual realm; 
you come in contact with men who are struggling, 
not for art, not for wealth, not for culture, not for 
refinement, but for walking with God. They blunder; 
they do not know; they have dim visions, oftentimes, 
of God, — they see him as that blind man saw the 
trees as men walking. Their notion is intermingled 
with the notion of their time; but in it all, throughout 
it all, inspiring it all, is that hunger and thirst after 
righteousness that shall be filled. 

That is what the Bible is given for. To show men 
they have gone wrong — that is reproof; to show 
them how to get right — that is correction; to in- 

238 



struct them in the path of right-going — that is in- 
struction in righteousness. It is given to make men 
and women. 

W)at i* fte JStble? 

September Fifth 

Behind the truth and behind the experience you 
are to look for something still more than either, — 
you are to look for God himself. For it is the funda- 
mental teaching of the Bible, that which underlies 
it all, that God dwells, not in the clouds above, nor 
in the sea beneath, nor in the earth we tread on, but 
in the hearts of men; that his voice is heard, not in 
the thunder of the heavens, not in the earthquake, 
not in the tornado, but in the still, small voice that 
ever calls to duty, to fidelity, and to love. Back of 
all Bible truth is the human experience of the Divine. 
Back of all human experience of the Divine is the God 
that inspires, irradiates, and creates it. . . . At last 
to show himself in Jesus Christ our Lord, the only 
perfect Life, the only perfect Teacher, the only per- 
fect manifestation of God, in either word or deed. 
He that did speak in fragmentary forms and utter- 
ances through the prophets hath spoken in these last 
days by his Son. Christ in the Bible makes the Bible 
sacred. 

The message of the Bible is above all things this: 
That there is a God; that God is justice, and that 
God is love, and that because He is justice and love, 
therefore He demands justice and love of His chil- 
dren. 

239 



®iie Spiritual Stature 

September Sixth 

You may wish for wealth, and stay poor. You 
may wish for reputation, and be dishonored. You 
may wish for knowledge, and yet be shut up to a life 
of relative ignorance. You may wish for influence, 
and yet be so hedged about that all your life shall 
seem to be spent in vain. But the soul that longs for 
a stronger conscience, a clearer faith, a more eager 
and joyous hope, a diviner reverence, shall not go 
unsatisfied. This is the one hunger to which God 
promises ever and always enough: " Blessed are they 
that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they 
shall be filled." 

He who is mastered by a passion for righteousness 
has in himself the spring of perpetual youth. 

Blessed are those whose dominating desire is for 
divineness of character in themselves and in their 
fellows, for this desire is certain to be satisfied; it 
is the supremest desire, and therefore its satisfaction 
gives the supremest happiness; and it is an eternal 
desire, which is ever bringing satisfaction and never 
brings satiety. 

tlfje Spiritual Stature 

September Seventh 

I pray God that you present yourselves, spirit, 
soul, body, blameless before the throne of his grace. 
Blameless in body, with no wart upon it of intemper- 
ance or sensual self-indulgence; blameless in soul, 

240 



with no ignorant superstition degrading it, with no 
social coldness, no disfellowship of humanity, no 
idleness shackling the hands that should have been 
busy in service ; blameless in spirit, — what do I 
mean by that? I pray God that you may have a 
reverence that shall always show something higher 
and grander and nobler and diviner than the eye has 
ever shown you, and shall always make you bow be- 
fore it and follow after it. I pray that God may give 
you a hope that shall summon you to a nobler and 
diviner life than can be interpreted by anything the 
eye has ever seen or the ear has ever heard. I pray 
God that he may give you a conscience that shall hold 
you rigorously and undeviatingly in the path of 
rectitude, not turning to the right hand nor the left 
under beckoning enticement or under threatening 
pressure and menace. I pray God that he may give 
you a love so large, so catholic, and so inspired by 
him that no wrong shall weary its patience, no in- 
iquity shall blur or hinder its sympathy, no sorrow 
shall fail to touch its pity: for this makes manhood 
and womanhood Not what we know: ignorance 
does not defile us. Not what we have done: doing 
does not make us. But what in the higher develop- 
ments of our soul, what in our reverence, in our hope, 
in our faith, in our love, we are, — that really makes 
us. 

3@oe* &oV& Mtttp (tnhnvt Jforeber? 

September Eighth 

The most awful truth of life, to me, is the truth of 
liberty, the truth of individual responsibility, the 

241 



truth that every man is, in a true sense, the final 
arbiter of his own destiny. What God can do I 
know not, but if I read aright either the word which 
he has written in the Book, or the word which he is 
writing in life, God will not interfere with the liberty 
of the human will. He will influence, he will entreat, 
he will teach, he will guide, he will persuade, but he 
will not coerce. The only service he will take is the 
service of willing children, voluntarily offered. The 
service of the galley-slave, chained to the oar, he will 
have none of. You can, if you will, shut out the 
Almighty love and mercy of God from your heart. 
You can close the shutters, draw down the curtains 
and exclude the sunlight. It will still shine on, but 
not for you. God's mercy endures forever, but 
whether God's mercy will accomplish your cure, 
redeem you, bring you to the knowledge and the love 
of himself, that must depend at last upon whether 
you will accept or whether you will reject it. 

Jloeg <&oV& jWercp €nfcmre jforeber? 

September Ninth 
Life is a school, humanity is in its tutelage, and 
God is the Teacher. 

The very hardnesses of life, the very apparent 
cruelties of life, are the kindnesses of a God who 
through severity and gentleness is working out the 
world's redemption. 

God puts us, his children, into life, binds heavy 
burdens on our backs, gives us hard tasks, allows us 

242 



to know the experiences of pain and of heartache: 
for thus he makes us strong. He brings us into the 
circle and bids us wrestle with an opponent who 
sometimes throws us and whom it is hard for us to 
throw, but in the wrestling our muscles grow strong 
and our nerves tense and our courage high, and out 
of the battle comes forth the hero. But the end of 
it all is not law, nor justice, nor punishment, but 
mercy, redemption, education. 

God's mercy endures forever, because it is the 
nature of God and of God's government and of God's 
punishments to achieve cure, healing, health, for 
humanity. 

God's mercy endures forever, because God is Love. 

1$\* 0itxtp Ctrtmreti) jforeber 

September Tenth 

The merciful man is in spirit like the merciful God : 
his mercy endureth forever. The passion to cure 
sin abounds in him and overflows in him like the en- 
thusiastic physician's passion to cure disease. The 
greater the disease, the greater the interest in con- 
quering it; the greater the sin, the greater the inter- 
est in overcoming it. Punishment is to the merciful 
man only a means for cure, as amputation of the 
diseased limb is only a means for saving threatened 
life. 

He who possesses this passion for redemption, this 
curative enthusiasm, this eager longing to be a phy- 
sician for the spiritual life in the exercise of forgiving 

243 



kindness, receives forgiving kindness. In curing 
others he cures himself. As no man can teach the 
truth sincerely and not understand the truth better 
because he teaches it, so no man can give himself to 
the work of purifying others without in the very 
process purifying himself. He cannot go into the 
slums for the purpose of inspiring men and women 
with an ambition for cleanliness of body, purity of 
soul, temperance, kindliness, unaffected piety, with- 
out himself gaining a clearer understanding of and a 
greater desire for cleanliness, purity, temperance, 
kindliness, and unaffected piety in his own life. The 
way to save one's soul is to endeavor to save the souls 
of others. The redeemer becomes himself redeemed. 

Nature, that is, God, implants in man himself the 
help-giving powers that remove disease; and, in 
addition, stores the world full of remedies also, so 
that specifics may be found for almost every disease 
to which flesh is heir. The laws of healing are 
wrought into the physical realm; they are a part of 
the divine economy; and shall we think that he who 
helps the man to a new skin and to a new bone cares 
nothing for his moral nature, and will not help him 
when he has fallen into sin? 

Cfje ifunfcamental jfattfjsf of tfje fflini&tcp 

September Eleventh 

Perception of God means more than a perception 
of the good; faith in God means more than belief 
in justice and mercy. It means belief in a just and 
merciful Person. 

244 



God has come into life and filled one human life 
full of himself that he may fill all human lives full 
of himself, and in doing this he has brought the world 
deliverance from its sins, and transformed its sor- 
rows into sources of a joy deeper than any sorrowless 
joy. 

Rest, power, contentment, peace, joy, — these are 
some of the elements in that life which he declares 
that he has come to give to mankind. 

All religions recognize the obligations of man to- 
ward God; what is distinctive about the Christian 
religion is that it recognizes the obligations of God 
toward man. 

We are not to climb up to God, — he has come 
down to us, and takes us into his strong arms as a 
father takes his child: all that we need to do is to 
accept the forgiveness that he freely offers, and live 
joyously the life with which he inspires us. 

tKfje iHfntetrp of 3fz*ux Cfjrtef 

September Twelfth 

To understand Christ's principles, to appreciate 
Christ's spirit, and then to apply those principles 
and exemplify that spirit in our own life — this is to 
follow Christ. 

The spirit of Christ carried into life will make it 
harmonious, hopeful, joyous, divine. 

We are here to serve one another, to lift men up, to 
comfort, to console, to illumine, to instruct, to re- 

245 



deem; not to be ministered unto, but to minister. 
What is the secret of happiness? That question he 
answers in the Sermon on the Mount. Character 
is the secret of happiness. Blessed are the poor in 
spirit, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the 
peacemakers. Not what we have but what we are 
determines our happiness. What is the secret of 
character? How shall I possess a holiness (or whole- 
ness or healthfulness) that will make me blessed? 
That question he answers in the sermon on the bread 
of life. The secret is communion with God, fel- 
lowship with him, feeding upon him, making him 
the substance of our life, the nourishment of our 
soul. What is the destiny of man, the issue of life, 
the outcome of this great drama of history of which 
we are a part? That he answers in his Discourse 
on the Last Day. It is the revelation of God, such 
a revelation that the deaf will hear, the blind will see, 
the dull will recognize. 

tEfje Jfflinfetrp of 3lt&\x& Cftrtet 

September Thirteenth 

A man who cannot think of anything better to do 
with things than to fill his house with them, and then 
build another house and fill that with them, and 
then a third house and fill that with them, Jesus 
calls a fool. And there are a great many such fools 
in America. He put this truth again explicitly in 
a question which it will be well for Americans to 
ponder: " What is a man profited, if he shall gain 
the whole world, and lose his own fife? " The world 

246 



is made for life, and if a man exchanges his life for 
the world, what does he gain? Yet there is many a 
man who does exactly this. He can purchase pic- 
tures in France or Germany or England, and pay what 
prices he will, but he has no eyes for art. He can 
buy libraries, and with them make beautiful wall- 
paper for his rooms, but the only books he cares 
for are the ledger and the day-book. He has money 
which will enable him to put all the luxuries of all 
the markets on his table, and a digestion which for- 
bids him to eat any of them. He has lost his life in 
gaining things. In our American world are many 
such men. 

Whatever I can use to make myself, my family, 
my world wiser, better, happier, I will enjoy; and 
what I cannot so use I will prohibit to myself. 
This was the method which Christ urged alike by his 
precept and example. 

Wbt iflintetrp of Sesfug Cfjrtet 

September Fourteenth 

Christianity is medicinal. Christianity offers to 
help men to be better men; and Christ has told us 
how we are to accomplish that for our fellow men. 
" Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt 
love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I 
say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that 
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray 
for them which despitefully use you, and persecute 
you; that ye may be the children of your Father 
which is in heaven." Not by wrath, not primarily 

247 



nor chiefly by pain and penalty, but by love and 
service and self-sacrifice, is the world to be made 
right. The penologists are beginning themselves to 
accept this principle, and to recognize that we need 
in our country, not a system of justice which will 
give to every offense its proper proportion of suffer- 
ing, but a system of mercy which will give to every 
man who has been thrust into wrong-doing by cir- 
cumstances, or who has walked into wrong-doing 
with open eyes and willing feet, an inspiration to 
return to virtue. 

These three things Christ has come to do; I do 
not say that he does not do more; but at least these 
three things he has come to do. He has come to 
show us what manhood is; he has come to put in us 
the hope of attaining it; and he has come to give us 
help in accomplishing that hope. 

W$t iflmfetrp of 3Fe*us Cfjrtet 

September Fifteenth 
The Christianity which Jesus Christ taught and 
which Jesus Christ exemplified by his life is not a 
negative religion. The Sermon on the Mount, which 
is at once analogous and antithetical to the Ten 
Commandments, contains very few prohibitions. 
Its spirit is a spirit of life, not of restraint; of in- 
spiration, not of prohibition. Its commands are 
affirmative. They are more than that; they fur- 
nish an ideal, and they summon us to realize that 
ideal in our lives. They are prophecies and prom- 
ises. This is very clearly brought out in the sen- 

248 



tence: " Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your 
heavenly Father is perfect." The specific commands 
of Jesus Christ are simply steps which we are to take 
toward a realization of this divine life in our lives, 
this divine ideal in our characters. 

We will look to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth 
to learn what are the laws of life, and to his character 
for the model or type of noble living, and to him for 
the inspiration to life, the inspiration to hope for 
ourselves and for the world, for faith in ourselves 
and in God. 

" This is a faithful saying and worthy of all accep- 
tation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
sinners." 

flP&e jWintetrp of 3feau* Cijrist 

September Sixteenth 

Jesus Christ taught that God, who is his Father, 
is also our Father. When his disciples asked him, 
How shall we come to God? he replied in substance, 
Tell him the things you want. You are hungry, ask 
him for bread; in perplexity, ask him to guide you; 
in temptation, ask him to make you strong, that you 
majr put the temptation under foot; you have fallen, 
ask him to lift you up and put you on your feet 
again. He will listen to you, for he cares for you. 
Not even a sparrow falls to the ground and he does 
not know it; and you are worth a great deal more 
to him than sparrows. Ask your father-heart: Will 
you not give good gifts to your children? and do you 

249 



not think that He will give good gifts to you? Do 
not be afraid of him; he is not one to be afraid of. 
Have you done wrong? Still do not be afraid of 
him. Have you sinned against him? Still do not 
be afraid of him. Have you sinned against him 
times and ways without number, so that you are no 
more worthy to be called his son? Still do not be 
afraid of him. . . . This is the summary of Christ's 
teaching concerning God: The Infinite and Eternal 
Energy from which all things proceed is a loving 
Person, a Father who cares for his children; we can 
know him; we can talk with him; we can get an- 
swers from him; we can come into fellowship with 
him; we can live in the kind of unity with him that 
a husband lives with a wife, or a friend with a friend. 

Wb* JWmtstr|> of 3Fe£ua C&rtet 

September Seventeenth 

" When thou prayest," he said to his disciples, 
" enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy 
door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.' ' His 
closet was sometimes the wild eastern shore of the 
Sea of Galilee, sometimes a recess high up among the 
hills, sometimes a garden in the environs of Jeru- 
salem. Eager as he was to help men, thronged as 
he was by men eager for his help, with a work too 
large to be accomplished in a lifetime, and a life too 
short for anything but the merest beginning of that 
work, yet he never was so busy that he could not get 
away from men for hours whose occupation is hidden 
from our vision, and can be interpreted only by our 

250 



experience. How intimate was his companionship 
with his Father in those hours, how far back into the 
ages which preceded his birth that companionship 
may have reached, it is not for us to know. But this 
we may surely know, — that we who are trying to do 
Christ's work in Christ's way, whose aspiration it is 
to emulate his industry, his freedom, his spontaneity, 
his reality, his courage, his self-control, his conscien- 
tiousness, his piety, and his hopefulness, must have 
our hours of solitude that are also hours of most inti- 
mate companionship, our hours of silence and repose, 
given not to study, not even to petition, but to that 
communion which can neither be analyzed nor de- 
scribed, hours when perhaps our only prayer is, 
Speak, Lord, for thy servant is listening, and perhaps 
the only answer we hear is, Be still and know that I 
am God. 

t%e jUmfatrp of Zfz&usi Cfjrtet 

September^ Eighteenth 

The ancient Hebrews called themselves a peculiar 
people. One of their peculiarities was that they 
looked forward, not backward, for their Golden Age. 
They believed that a time was coming when poverty 
would be abolished, when property would be so 
equally distributed that every man could sit under 
his own vine and fig tree, when education would be 
universal so that no man would need to teach his 
neighbor, when despotism would cease because the 
laws of God would be accepted by mankind and just 
law would need no other enforcement than the sanc- 

251 



tions of religion, when wars would end and the imple- 
ments of war would be converted into instruments 
of industry, when family dissensions would cease and 
the hearts of the fathers would be turned to the chil- 
dren and the hearts of the children would be turned 
to the fathers. 

The theme of Jesus' ministry was this kingdom of 
God. In his first published sermon, delivered in the 
synagogue at Nazareth, he read one of the ancient 
prophecies of this Golden Age, and told the congre- 
gation he had come to fulfil it. 

In the fulfilment of that mission Jesus never set 
aside the social teachings of the prophets or sub- 
stituted for their glad tidings of a Golden Age any 
other. On the contrary, he emphasized their social 
teachings. They had denounced injustice and in- 
humanity and repeatedly declared that no forms or 
ceremonies could take the place of doing justly and 
loving mercy. Jesus denounced injustice and in- 
humanity with even greater vigor, and reaffirmed the 
truth that righteousness and mercy are greater than 
temple services. And he taught his disciples to pray, 
" Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done; on earth 
as it is in heaven. 7 ' 

Wfje jfunctton of tfje fflinixtrp 

September Nineteenth 

The Church is to be measured, not by the institu- 
tions it sustains, but by the inspiration it imparts. . . . 
The function of the minister is not to tell men how 

252 



they ought to vote in the immediate issue before the 
community. His function is to inspire in his con- 
gregation the faith that God is in his world working 
out his kingdom, and the purpose to work with him 
to that end. It is to lift men above the issues of the 
hour to the eternal issues; above the party conflicts 
of the hour to the eternal conflict between truth and 
error, light and darkness, humanity and injustice, 
selfishness and generosity, good and evil, in which 
all temporary conflicts are but episodes. It is to 
cause them to consider the effect of their action, not 
upon their own personal interests, nor upon those of 
their party, but upon the kingdom of God. If the 
minister, strong in that perception of God which 
constitutes the essence of religion, perceives him in 
public affairs, and causes his congregation to look 
there for him also, he may contribute nothing directly 
to the solution of tariff, or currency, or colonial ques- 
tions, on which the nation is to vote; but he will do 
what is far more important, — he will promote that 
spirit of divine justice which clarifies the mind from 
the disturbing influences of pride and passion, and 
that long look ahead which is the best guide for the 
action of each day. . . . The minister . . . can, if he 
will, so speak as to send men back to the polls with 
a higher conscience, a greater regard for purity, a 
greater purpose to serve their country well. 

The secret of all individual life is acquaintance with 
God, and the supreme source of acquaintance with 
God is Jesus Christ. 



253 



®f)e 3htbtiribual JWefi&age of tfje fflini&ttv 

September Twentieth 

If every white preacher would preach to inspire 
white men to take up the white men's burden, and 
every negro preacher to inspire negro men to bear 
bravely their black men's burden, and every preacher 
to employers would speak of the duties of employers 
to the employed, and every preacher to workingmen 
of the duties of workingmen to their employers, the 
race problem and the labor problem would be much 
nearer their solution than they are to-day. Class 
preaching can have but one effect, — to intensify 
class prejudice and widen the gulf between the classes; 
and class preaching, by which I mean preaching to 
one class on the sins and the duties of another class, 
is unfortunately very common in America. . . . The 
power of the sermon must be the power of a personal 
relation; the counsel of a personal friend to personal 
friends; the revelation of God by a soul full of 
his Spirit to a congregation who need him. 

The value of the sermon lies in its power to im- 
part life to the congregation. 

So live that your own life will be a message of 
glad tidings; so live as to make your life a witness 
that it is possible for man to possess the spirit 
and practice the precepts of our Master; so live 
that your life will say to your congregation what 
Paul said to the Corinthian Christians, "Be ye 
followers of me, even as I also am of Christ." 

254 



1EMt Sntitoituiai jWes&age of tfte jWmtetrp 

September Twenty-first 

The opportunity to have some share in promoting 
the unity of Christendom, not by an organic union of 
all churches in one church, but by the cooperation 
of all churches in the teaching of Christian truth and 
the inspiration of Christian life, constituted a strong 
appeal to me. 

I believe that if a pastor desires his church to be a 
working church his first aim must be to inspire it with 
a spiritual ambition, ... to inspire directly the con- 
science, the reverence, the faith, the hope, the love, 
of the hearers. 

The minister who simply expounds the truth does 
not understand his mission. His mission is so to use 
truth that men shall be made free; that men shall be 
made holy. His ministry is, therefore, to be deter- 
mined by fruits in the life. That is the best sermon, 
not which is a great pulpit effort, but which is helpful. 
If, young men, you have preached a sermon and some 
one comes up to you and says that was a great pulpit 
effort, hide your head in shame and go home and 
never write another like it. But if some one comes 
to you, with a little quaver in the voice and a little 
moisture in the eye, and says, " Thank you; you 
have helped me this morning/ ' thank God and go 
home and try to write another like it. That is the 
end of preaching, — to use theology to help life. The 
test of the sermon is its fruitfulness in life. 

255 



Efje Ihitubifcroal Mt**a%z ot tfje JHinfetrp" 

September Twenty-second 

His [the preacher's] object is to bring the individual 
soul into communion with the living God, and so 
inspire in him a life of loyalty to God, and to do this 
by inspiring in the individual such a perception of 
the Infinite, manifested in Jesus Christ, as will 
awaken in him the desire, and form within him the 
purpose, to lead a Christlike life and attain a Christ- 
like character. . . . No one can be a good preacher 
without godliness, because it is the function of the 
preacher to give men acquaintance with God. . . . 
His inspiration is always the love of God, and of men 
as the children of God, and a hope in him as the Re- 
deemer of the world. 

Men come to church for religion: that is, for life. 
To be more specific, they come for the fruit of the 
Spirit: for love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, 
serviceableness, fidelity, meekness, self-control. When 
they get only theology, that is, only what philos- 
ophers have thought about this fruit of the Spirit, 
and the cause which produces it, and the methods 
of its development, and the consequences of lacking 
it, they go away dissatisfied. To-morrow morning 
the reader will go down to breakfast and will expect 
his rolls and coffee; if instead of rolls and coffee his 
wife should read him a lecture on hygiene, he would 
go away dissatisfied; and if that should happen often, 
he would go somewhere else for breakfast. It is 
quite important that the housewife should under- 

256 



stand the principles of hygiene in order that she may 
know how to prepare breakfast; but what we want is 
breakfast, not a lecture on hygiene. So what men 
and women go to church for is religion, not a lecture 
about religion; and when they go to church and get, 
not religion, but a philosophy about religion, they 
stop going. It is not strange. 

5Cije g>oriaI $les#ase of rtje JWintetrp 

September Twenty-third 

The minister, if he follows his Master, accepts his 
Master's commission, and endeavors to carry on 
toward its completion his Master's mission, is not 
merely to be a preacher of glad tidings to individuals. 
He is not merely to be an evangelist to solitary pil- 
grims, bidding them flee from the City of Destruc- 
tion. He is to be the herald of a new social order; 
he is to aim at nothing less than making a celestial 
city out of the City of Destruction; he is to be the 
inbringer and the upbuilder of a new earth wherein 
dwells righteousness. . . . The function of the Chris- 
tian ministry is not merely to make individuals 
luminous by inspiring in them the life of Christ; 
it is not merely to make the Church luminous by 
gathering into it the Christian light-bearers; it is 
to make the nation a light-bearer to all the nations 
of the world. 

The minister should regard it as a chief ministerial 
function to discover the unused resources in his church 
and inspire them to Christ-like service. There is 
latent power enough in the churches to transform the 

257 



community if that power were awakened by a spirit 
of passionate loyalty and directed in channels of 
beneficent activity. 

Wi}t Christian Jfflintetrp 

September Twenty-fourth 

A religion which did not teach us how to live on 
earth would have small claims upon our respect when 
it claimed to teach us how to prepare for heaven. A 
teacher who cannot tell his boys how to get along with 
each other in their school is not the man to prepare 
them to get along with each other as men. Chris- 
tianity is not merely individual; it is organic. The 
teacher of Christianity who does not discover laws 
of social life in the Bible has studied it to very little 
purpose. The teacher who does not teach those laws 
does not follow the example of either the Old Tes- 
tament prophets, the New Testament apostles, or 
the divine Master of both. 

To whom else shall the people look for instruction 
in the moral principles of a true social order if not to 
the ministry? . . . The real formers of public opin- 
ion are the teachers and the preachers, the schools 
and the churches. ... If they . . . will devote them- 
selves to the spiritual study of the Bible and of life, 
— that book which is always being written and is 
never finished, — they can be leaders of the leaders. 
They can lay the foundations on which other men shall 
rear the superstructure. They speak, or can speak, 
to all classes in the community, for they belong to 
none. . . . The Church and ministry, then, must be 

258 



competent to give instruction in the moral laws 
which govern social and industrial life, — the or- 
ganized life of humanity. The age requires this 
instruction; the people desire it; the religious teach- 
ers should give it. 

tZbije Cfjritftian illintetrp 

September Twenty-fifth 

No man is a Christian minister, whatever his eccle- 
siastical ordination, and however sound his theo- 
logical orthodoxy, unless he possesses the spirit of 
sobriety, which puts the inner life above outward 
possessions, and measures all things by their spirit- 
ual values; unless he possesses the spirit of right- 
eousness, which counts life an opportunity for ser- 
vice, and no life well spent which is not spent for 
others; unless he possesses the spirit of godliness, 
which knows the living God as a Companion, a 
Friend, a Helper and Saviour; unless he possesses 
the spirit of hopefulness for himself and for his fel- 
low men, which enkindles for them and in them an 
exhaustless and expectant aspiration. 

Whenever a minister forgets this splendid message 
of pardon, peace, and power based on faith in Jesus 
Christ as God manifest in the flesh, whenever for 
this message he substitutes literary lectures, critical 
essays, sociological disquisitions, theological con- 
troversies, or even ethical interpretations of the 
universal conscience, whenever, in other words, he 
ceases to be a Christian preacher and becomes a 
lyceum or seminary lecturer, he divests himself of 

259 



that which in all ages of the world has been the power 
of the Christian ministry, and will be its power so 
long as men have sins to be forgiven, temptations to 
conquer, and sorrows to be assuaged. 

tEfje jJlinteter a* $ne*t 

September Twenty-sixth 

The Lord's Supper is a memorial service. " This 
do in remembrance of me," is a request rather than 
a command. Christ wished to be remembered One 
thing and only one does he ask us to do for himself; 
he says, Do not forget me. And that you do not 
forget me, now and again meet together and take this 
bread and this wine in memory of me. The one 
thing that we can do for Christ that is not for the 
service of some one else is our participation in the 
Lord's Supper. 

But the Lord's Supper is something more than a 
memorial. It is an occasion wherein we may espe- 
cially feel, if we will, the companionship of our Lord. 

Our whole attention is concentrated on compan- 
ionship with our Master and our Friend. We come 
to this service in a receptive mood of mind. Our 
thoughts are directed not to what we should do, or 
what we should think, or what we are, they are not 
even directed to what we need; they are directed 
away from ourselves altogether to Another. ... It 
is a Communion, in which we are brought close to 
one another because we are brought close to him. 

260 



Wbt Cfmrcf) 

September Twenty-seventh 
A church has no moral right to be behind the times. 

The church never fulfils its highest and noblest 
function except when its priests bear the ark of God 
in advance of humanity, and pioneer the way, that 
civilization, with all its accompaniments of liberty, 
education, and personal comfort, may follow. In 
every good word and work, in everything which tends 
to ameliorate the condition or improve the character 
of mankind, in every movement to enlarge the sphere 
or deepen the current of education, to give industry 
a larger play and a better reward, to promote tem- 
perance, cleanliness, health, happiness, good gov- 
ernment, in village, county, state, or nation, the 
preacher, the teacher, the Christian, in a word, the 
church, should be in the front rank, leading the way, 
inspiring courage, inciting hope, strengthening pur- 
pose, elevating and clarifying faith, fearless of ob- 
stacles, confident in God, assured of victory. 

If the church is in the midst of a commercial com- 
munity threatened by the vices of commercialism, 
its message is to be Christ and him crucified; Christ 
the incarnation of service and sacrifice. This ought 
to be the message, and, thank God, more and more 
this is our message in our Christian pulpits. Not a 
doctrine of atonement; the world will never be 
served by a doctrine, new or old; it will never be set 
right by a theory, right or wrong. A Person — a 
living Person, a loving, serving, sacrificing Person, 

261 



a Person who has shown his power of love by all that 
he has suffered and all that he has done for humanity : 
this is the meaning of our ministry. 

3Cfte Cfjurcl) 

September Twenty-eighth 

The power of the pulpit depends on the life of the 
preacher; on the intensity and reality of his faith; 
on the vitality of his spiritual experience. This is 
the secret of pulpit power. Only as he travails in 
soul for the souls of his congregation can he preach 
any doctrine of atonement with effectiveness; only 
as he is himself a new creature in Christ Jesus can he 
preach regeneration; only as he loves the Bible can 
he commend it; only as he abhors sin in himself can 
he rebuke it in others; only as he is a man of prayer 
can he develop the spirit of prayer in his people; 
only as he lives Christ can he preach Christ. 

We shall yet come in the Church of Christ to the 
conclusion that no man can be allowed to lead the 
worship of God through the medium of music who is 
not himself devout. It is as incongruous that an 
undevout choir-master should lead the worship of 
God as that an undevout minister should lead it. 
And yet in many of our city churches the only ques- 
tion asked respecting singer or organist is, Can she 
sing? Can he play? As a consequence we do not get 
music that is a vehicle for the carriage of a spiritual 
life. How can we, when there is no spiritual life in 
the singer to be conveyed? We get perhaps a good 
essay at one end of the church, and a musical per- 

262 



formance at the other. That is not worship; and 
it is not religion. " Thou shalt not take the name of 
the Lord thy God in vain." I sometimes think that 
there is no place where that command is more vio- 
lated than in some Christian churches. 



tK&e $otoer of tfje Cfmrrfj 

September Twenty-ninth 

The church exists that it may make holy men and 
holy women; and, if it fails in this, nothing it can do, 
no creed to which it can subscribe, no ritual which it 
can utter, no cathedral which it can construct, no 
benevolences in which it can engage, count for any- 
thing. . . . The development of the individual char- 
acter is the end of all organization. 

A church is not a Christian church that is not a 
missionary church. ... It is not a Christian church 
unless, coming to the sanctuary and getting through 
the church a larger vision of God, a larger life of him, 
a better sense of his love and more of his spirit, it 
goes forth to carry it to those who need that life and 
that love, as Christ came forth from God, and as 
through the eternities God has been coming forth 
from himself. 

As faith in the Fatherhood of God and the infinite 
mercies of Christ has deepened, the motive power of 
Christian missions has increased in the Christian 
churches. Love for Christ and pity for the Christ- 
less is the secret of that power. 

263 



Cl)c dabimtft 

Septem ber Thirtieth 
This is what the Sabbath is given to us for. It is 
given to us that we may drop for a little while the 
questions which are perplexing us in the house, in 
the office, and in the market-place, and may come 
face to face with the larger, grander, diviner prob- 
lem how to make men and women. 

We can never learn how to rest in God on the Sab- 
bath unless we have learned how to work for God 
throughout the week. 

May this church, as it goes on in its work and its 
life, not count on the things perceived and human for 
its strength; not on social power, not on intellectual 
power, not on human muscularity of any kind: may 
it count on the power that is not ourselves, on the 
power of God, of Him who holds all the infinite re- 
sources of his being that he may pour them out into 
hungry, needy, weakened, impoverished souls, and 
fill them with himself. 

Christian 4Ht**totf0 

October First 
The motive power which the churches need for 
missionary work, both at home and abroad, is not a 
new dogmatism, nor an old one reenforced, about the 
uncertainties of the future, it is a profound spiritual 
sense of what the Apostle, with profound spiritual 
insight, calls " the exceeding sinfulness of sin;" it 

264 



is a burden of heart at the unutterable horror of the 
present hell of sensuality, cruelty, animalism, pride, 
ambition ; the unutterable horror of a heart separated 
from its Father and petrified against all the sunny 
influences of his love; and a profound sense of the 
height, and depth, and length, and breadth of that 
love which passeth knowledge. A sense of it? Nay! 
a possession of it, until every faculty thrills with it, 
and every aspiration and ambition is uplifted by it, 
and every desire is enlarged and purified by it, and 
the soul can contain itself no longer, but must over- 
flow from its very fullness, as the spring from the 
mountain side which can no longer contain its heaven- 
bestowed gift of life-giving water. 

Wfyz Mttzis&itp of ijSrogrestf 

October Second 

The world has moved by successive stages to higher 
and higher conceptions of social and political morality. 

The man is not a Christian until he has taken 
Christ as his standard and said to himself, " I will 
love, God helping me, as Christ loved." 

If the church has no hand-grasp for the poor, if it 
sheds no light upon the unchurched, if it is not, in 
some form or other, by some activity or other, laying 
hold of the great populations that God has brought to 
our shores that we may lay hold of them, it is not the 
living church of God and of his Christ. 

" Blessed," says the Psalmist, " is he that con- 
sidered the poor." The American poor are not 

265 



beggars. Real, spontaneous, friendly consideration 
is far more valuable and far more welcome than are 
unconsidered gifts of food, clothing, or money, 
whether given by individual impulse or by cold- 
blooded, official charity. 

tKfje Mtttt&ity of $rogrea& 

October Third 

It can hardly be doubted that the Church has laid 
more emphasis on accurate definitions of religion in 
its creeds than it has upon faith and hope and love. 
It has laid more emphasis on baptism and on the 
particular form of baptism than upon consecration 
of the life to the service of God in the service of his 
children. It has laid more emphasis on the Lord's 
Supper than on Christian fellowship. It has laid 
more emphasis on the Church organization and on 
membership in the Church than on the work which 
the Church was appointed to do. 

It is often said that the Church is losing its power. 
If so, it is not religion which is losing its power, but 
the instruments of religion which are proving in- 
effective for the needs of the present age. If it would 
recover its power, it must lay more emphasis on con- 
secration of life than on baptism, on Christian fel- 
lowship than on the Lord's Supper, on Christian 
service than on membership in the Christian Church. 

Lamartine, poet, orator, statesman, wrote to a 
friend: " The one object of my life has been to bring 
men to God." If the Church would recover its 

266 



power, it must recover this as the one object of its 
existence. . . . 

Never more than to-day do men need realities. 
Never more than to-day do they refuse to accept 
symbols which do not express realities. Children 
need their Father. The Church must either so em- 
ploy its present symbols as to bring men to God or 
substitute for that purpose other and more efficient 
instruments. 



Slefjolb, 5 jUlafee ail ©fctnga Jleta 

October Fourth 

Christian disciples generally believe that God is 
the Father of whom every family in heaven and earth 
is named, and that Jesus Christ is the Light of the 
world. 

But this faith the Church has not illustrated by 
its life. 

It has been split up into a great variety of factions. 
. . . Our creeds have been framed, not to unite us, 
but to separate us; not to express what we do be- 
lieve, but what we think our fellow-Christians ought 
to believe. Our liturgies have been framed, not 
merely to express our devotion, but to impose our 
devotional expression upon others. Creeds, rituals, 
symbols, have been made compulsory. True, we 
no longer use physical force to compel conformity. 
But we use moral force. Denominational barriers 
are not as high as they once were, but they still exist. 
The denominations no longer fight one another, but 

267 



only occasionally and hesitatingly do they cooperate 
with one another. 

Our soldier boys have gone from all sorts of churches 
and from no churches at all. . . . They have been 
fighting together, rendering the same service, in- 
spired by the same spirit. Coming back, they are 
not going to put the same emphasis on the denomina- 
tion that we have put upon the denomination. . . . 
If we Christians want to bring the men and women 
outside our church into our brotherhood, we must 
make it a brotherhood. We must not exclude them 
because they do not like the symbols we like, are not 
baptized as we are baptized, do not use our prayers, 
do not accept our definitions. 

"Behold, I make all things new." One of the 
things which God is making new in our time is the 
spirit and work of the Church. He is showing us how 
we can make it a true brotherhood. 



<©rototf) of tije Emgtoom of #ob 

October Fifth 
When we look back over the history of the world, 
we see that the death of Jesus Christ, which to the 
disciples seemed the end of all their hopes, was the 
birth of Christianity, that the destruction of Jeru- 
salem, which to the Jews seemed the end of spiritual 
religion, was but the breaking of the alabaster box 
that the perfume of its contents might spread through- 
out the world, that the decline and fall of the Roman 
Empire, which seemed to the men of that time to be 

268 



the overthrow of civilization, was but the labor pains 
of a new and Christian civilization, that in our own 
country the Civil War, which at the time appeared to 
portend an enmity between the North and the South 
which could only be overcome after two or three 
generations, did in fact unite the North and the 
South in the bonds of a friendship founded on mutual- 
ity of respect greater than the nation had ever before 
known. Instructed by such a survey of the past it 
is not difficult for us to believe that the present great 
world cataclysm, when it has accomplished the 
divine purpose, will advance the world far on its road 
toward that kingdom of God which is righteousness, 
peace and joy in holiness of spirit. 

9 $otoer unto g>albattcm 

October Sixth 

History is the interpreter of God's redeeming work, 
and what does history tell us? When Paul wrote to 
the Romans, " I am not ashamed of the glad tidings 
of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation," 
government was an absolute despotism; labor was 
wholly servile; the family was a commercial partner- 
ship which might be dissolved by either husband or 
wife at any time; there were no schools for the edu- 
cation of the people; and the pagan religion did not 
even pretend to try to make men better, — it devoted 
itself to appeasing the wrath of angry gods or brib- 
ing the favor of corruptible ones. For nineteen 
centuries Christ has been majestically marching 
through the world, and wherever he has gone, gov- 

269 



ernments have ceased to be the Old World despotisms 
they once were; the shackles have dropped from the 
wrists of the slave; the commercial conception of 
marriage has disappeared, though relics of the ancient 
paganism from which the world is emerging still 
appear in too many of our States; the public school 
for the education of the people has been first planted 
by the Church and then taken up and carried on by 
the State; and religion has become an instrument for 
the making of men, and its ministers and priests are 
endeavoring to bring to the people a message that will 
make them happier, wiser, better, more worthy to 
be called Christ's men. 

©be Christian Hitt 

October Seventh 

Life is a growth; but it is also a battle. And the 
battle is won only by the brave. A lazy wish for the 
kingdom of righteousness and peace and joy in holi- 
ness of spirit will accomplish nothing. Patient 
waiting will never vanquish Goliath; he will be con- 
quered only by the youth who dares hazard every- 
thing in an encounter. It is for this reason that, in 
his list of the graces that go to make up a true char- 
acter, Peter puts courage second: "Add to your 
faith virtue," that is, valor. It is for this reason that 
Christ so often declares it essential to discipleship. 
"And there went great multitudes with him: and 
he turned, and said unto them, Whosoever doth not 
bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my 
disciple." 

270 



One man has to fight natural acquisitiveness in 
order to be benevolent; another man has to fight 
natural pride in order to be humble; another man has 
to fight natural irritability in order to be patient; 
another man has to fight natural vanity in order to 
be truly sympathetic, without being swayed and 
turned aside by every wind of doctrine and every 
passing opinion. Every man is a battlefield; and 
it is only by the battle the man is made — only thus. 
Life would not be worth living if there were no battles. 
For we could not be heroes if there were no strife. 
There is no way of getting courage except by having 
to face danger; no way of getting humility, except 
by making pride bow its head; no way of getting the 
power of a strong, resolute purpose, except by making 
approbativeness the servant of conscience; no way 
of becoming truly loving, except by making selfish- 
ness bow its head to the yoke of righteousness. We 
win our victories by our battles and gain our char- 
acters by our conquests. This is the first battle for 
us to fight, . . . the battle for purity in our own hearts 
and our own lives. 

8©f)ole«3&earteti Consecration 

October Eighth 

He who . . . realizes that life is a battle and gives 
himself unreservedly to doing his bit will never be 
tempted to ask himself, " Is life worth living? " and 
will never complain to others or pity himself because 
his service is hard and its results are disappointing. 
He will not be perplexed because his companions in 

271 



the war are called to endure great self-sacrifices and 
go through great sorrows; and when one after an- 
other of these life comrades fall at his side he will still 
go forward, unterrified, unhalted, unhesitating. " I 
have nothing to fear," says one French soldier to his 
mother. " The worst that can happen to me is to 
be killed, and to die for a noble cause when one is 
young is a great blessing/ ' Writes another to his 
parents, " One must live the present without think- 
ing of the future. To be nearer danger and death is 
to be nearer God, and therefore why pity us? Put 
your trust in God! Everything happens according 
to His will, and it is ever for the best." . . . The 
remedy for the doubts, the perplexities, the dis- 
beliefs of a troubled mind is a whole-hearted conse- 
cration to a great cause and a great Captain. 

Life is the real test. And when a man deliberately 
gives up, in his devotion to the service of others, all 
that makes physical life worth living, and his expe- 
rience culminates by an eager offer of life itself for 
such intangible values as honor, courage, love, he 
affords the best possible evidence that he possesses 
immortality. This evidence may not be convincing; 
but it is far more convincing than any of the tests 
which the Church has ever been able to contrive. 
He who makes this great renunciation thereby gives 
assurance that above all things which are seen and 
temporal he values the things which are unseen and 
eternal. To him who possesses the deathless life 
death may easily appear to be but an incident in 
that life. 

272 



Wbe i^ope tfjat i% in 0Lt 

October Ninth 

" Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh 
you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear." 
(I. Peter, iii, 15.) 

If I tried in some measure to define that hope to 
myself and to you, talking to you gathered here much 
as I might talk to an individual who came to me in 
my study, saying: Give me a reason for your hope- 
fulness, I should say, first of all, that my hope is in 
a good God; in a Being who is, in some sense, at the 
center of the universe, ordering, directing and con- 
trolling it; in a good God, whom the longer I live the 
less I understand and the better I know ; a good God, 
who will bring order out of chaos, and moral order 
out of moral chaos, who will bring, at the last, vic- 
tory to the right. And because I have this hope in a 
good God at the center of the universe who orders and 
controls it, and who means to accomplish righteous- 
ness and will at the last accomplish righteousness, I 
am not discouraged by defeats. I can as little doubt 
the tendency of human life because of occasional 
lapses and defeats as I can doubt the course of a 
river because of the eddies along its bank, or as I 
can doubt the ultimate issue of spring by a snow 
flurry in May. My hope for the progress of the 
human race, or the progress of liberty, of education, 
of virtue — in one word, of all that goes up to make 
character, does not rest primarily in the progress 
achieved in the past; it does not rest primarily in 
my faith in men as men; it rests primarily in my faith 

273 



that there is a good God at the center of the uni- 
verse who orders and directs life, who out of chaos 
will bring order, out of moral chaos will bring moral 
order, out of war will bring peace, out of confusion 
will bring accord — yea, out of sin will bring the 
victory of righteousness. 

Mtlp HCfjou Mint Unbelief 

October Tenth 

When in the campaign before Vicksburg Grant 
called for volunteers for a forlorn hope service, nearly 
the whole regiment offered, and the question was who 
should have the privilege. When God calls on men 
and says: I want someone to suffer for me, someone 
to show the world how a son of God can bear suffering 
and obloquy, how he can carry himself when he is 
misrepresented and abused; how he can endure 
poverty; how he can live bereft of his wife and chil- 
dren; how many are there ready to enter his for- 
lorn hope and show their faith in righteousness? 

Faith ... is simply reaching out a heart of sym- 
pathy and laying hold on the heart of God and re- 
ceiving strength that God pours into the children 
whose souls are open to receive his help. 

Faith in Christ is an appreciation of the quality 
that is in Christ, a sense of his worth, a desire to be 
like him, a resolute purpose to follow after him and 
attain something of the same heroism and grandeur 
of character that he possessed. Faith in God is a 
sense of the divine and a trust that there is an in- 

274 



finite pity and an eternal helpfulness in the Infinite 
and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed, 
and a looking to its poured-out sympathy and an 
open heart to receive it. 

J&elp ®fjou Mint ©ufceltef 

October Eleventh 

Finally, have faith in the testimony of others who 
have seen what you do not see and have known what 
you do not know. We do not all walk by sight. 
Believe in the good God because men have known 
Him, though you have not known Him. . . . Oh, 
how in other things we act on the slightest intimation 
of a witness, and in religion wait to examine and cross- 
examine! A policeman last week found a poor un- 
conscious Italian, got him on his shoulder, ran twelve 
blocks through the sleet and snow, dropped him on 
the floor of a drug store, and called instantly for the 
medicine he wanted and poured it down his throat, 
and the drug clerk did not stop and say: " Are you 
a doctor? Have you a prescription? Where is 
your evidence? " but gave the medicine to him; and 
when the doctor came the poor Italian was sitting 
up, pale and trembling, but restored to life, because 
one man was willing to act on the counsel and judg- 
ment of another man. Last week a fire occurred in 
Cambridge, and a student was caught by the flames 
in the fourth story, and his fellow-students spread out 
a blanket and called out to him to jump. He could 
hardly see through the flames and smoke, but he 
sprang from the window sill, and was saved though 

275 



not uninjured, because he trusted in the word of 
others. I could go right through this congregation 
and could call up men and women I see before me and 
they would say to you: " I know there is a God; I 
have talked with Him; He has carried my burden; 
He has carried my sorrow; He has comforted me in it; 
He has carried my sin; He has taken it away; He 
has carried my iniquity; He has cleansed it away." 
Now, you do not know there is not a God. Act on 
the knowledge of others. If you cannot do anything 
else pray this prayer of the atheist: a O God, if 
there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul." That 
is better than nothing. It is the cry of a man who 
wants help. 

®fte Cfjrfattan Mtliti 

October Twelfth 

We believe that the Creator of the heavens and the 
earth stands in personal relation to every one of us, 
as a father to his child. We believe that his Son has 
come into the world, and has lived, and suffered, and 
died, and risen from the dead, that he may give us a 
new conception of God, and a new teaching of what 
humanity ought to be. We believe that the Spirit 
of God broods the hearts of the children of men, 
comforts them in their sorrow, illuminates them in 
their ignorance, leads them in their perplexity, lifts 
them out of their trouble and their downfall. We 
believe in the church of Christ as the body in which 
the Spirit of God dwells and through which it is 
manifested; in the communion of saints, the fellow- 

276 



ship that is deeper and broader and larger and richer 
than any communion of statehood or of country. 
We believe in a God who forgives sins, and cleanses 
the unclean, and purifies the impure, and strengthens 
the weak, and uplifts the fallen. We believe in this 
life as the mere precursor and opening to life, the mere 
bud that will blossom out into an unknown eternity. 
We believe in the resurrection of each individual soul. 
We believe in his continued personality. We believe, 
therefore, in the recognition of friends and the con- 
tinuance of earthly friendships and loves beyond the 
grave. 

October Thirteenth 

I think no longer of God as apart from nature or 
apart from life; He is Himself the indwelling force 
and activity. There are no forces; there is only one 
force — God. There are no laws; there is only one 
law — the will of God. There are no vital energies; 
there is only one Infinite and Eternal Energy from 
which all things proceed. There is no Great First 
Cause, father of a great variety of little and secondary 
causes; because there is one great underlying cause, 
a causa causans of everything in life. ... I have 
come to think of creation, not as something which 
God did once, in six days or six thousand years or 
six myriads of years, but as a continuous process, 
and God Himself in the process. All days are crea- 
tive days; all energies are creative energies. Every 
spring is a new creation. Every year, every hour He 

277 



divides the waters under the firmament from the 
waters above the firmament, and lifts the waters 
from the ocean and causes them to float in clouds 
above. Every spring He bids the earth bring forth 
its wealth and flower and blossom. ... He is in all 
the processes of nature. If your soul leaves your 
body, your body crumbles to the dust and mixes in 
the common earth. If you could conceive the spirit 
of Almighty God withdrawing from all the natural 
operations of the universe, the universe would crumble 
to the dust and cease to be. No bird would longer 
sing; no flowers again would bloom; no fishes would 
swim in the sea; no ocean tides would sweep into the 
harbors or the bays; no sun would put forth its rays; 
no living man would beat with pulse of hope, or fear, 
or love. God is the spirit of the universe; imagine 
that spirit gone, and the universe would be dust and 
ashes. 

W$z Jleto bs. tfje ©to GBbeolosp 

October Fourteenth 
There are men and women in this congregation 
who can look back and remember the time when they 
said, with tripping tongue: " God is love," and 
scarce knew what it meant; but now after the years 
of experience, of comfort in sorrow, of counsel in 
perplexity, of deliverance in temptation, of recovery 
from sin — now they can scarce repeat the words 
" God is love " without the tears coming to their eyes, 
for love means more and God means more, and there 
has been in them a revealing and unveiling, a dis- 
covery of God. 

278 



What father would be content to rule his children 
by law and penalty? In the olden time the teacher 
ruled them by rod. What teacher would be content 
to do that to-day? The teacher to-day lives in the 
hearts of her pupils, and holds them by influences 
from within, not by force from without. The pastor 
lives in the hearts of his people and holds them by 
influences from within, not by penances attached to 
wrong-doing from without. God rules the human 
race by influences from within, not by edict and rod 
from without. God is in humanity as God is in 
nature. If you ask me what I mean by that, I an- 
swer: In humanity as the husband is in the wife and 
the wife in the husband; as the child is in the father 
and the father in the child; as the pastor is in the 
hearts of his people and the people are in the heart of 
the pastor. As man is in his fellow man, so or only 
so can I understand it — is God in men, and the laws 
are His own being working out beneficent results. 

Wbt Jleto b*. tfje ©to ©fteologp 

October Fifteenth 

As I look back along the years, I can see that my 
theology and my experience have changed. All the 
natural seems to me now most supernatural; crea- 
tion a continuous process; special providence in 
every act of life; history as full of the presence of 
God now as it ever was; revelation, the discovery of 
God, still carried on as it was carried on in the ages 
past; law, God's own nature pushing itself out and 
working itself through the natures of His children; 

279 



forgiveness, the continual process of cleansing and 
setting free from sin; incarnation, the entrance 
through the open door of Christ into humanity, 
carried on and on, not to be completed until the whole 
human race is one with God; prayer, not a seeking 
that God shall do what I want, but a seeking that I 
may do what God wants, the conformity of my nature 
to God's nature; faith, not a belief that other men 
have seen God and testified to Him truly, but a per- 
ception myself of God in human life and in human 
experience; and religion, not a something apart from 
life to be found in churches and taken at last as a 
kind of torch through the dark door of death, but the 
life of God in the soul of man. 

God has been always in human history; lifting off 
sin from men, cleansing men, purifying men, re- 
deeming men, emancipating men, setting men free. 

The world is full of the witnesses of God's pres- 
ence, and we do not see them. 

God is disclosing Himself to men only so fast as 
they are able to receive the disclosure. 

jfattft in a BUnfoetgal $re*ence 

October Sixteenth 

This is my faith. I believe in a Universal Pres- 
ence, a Great Companion, a living Christ forever 
incarnate in the hearts and lives of his friends, living 
now in the world with mightier and wider influence 
and in more intimate communion and companion- 

280 



ship with his disciples than ever before, a living vine 
growing from a little seed planted nineteen centuries 
ago and since then spreading over the whole earth, 
whose fruits are a peace which troubles cannot dis- 
turb and a joy which pains cannot destroy. The 
seed of this faith was given to me many years ago 
by John's report of the last discourse of Jesus to his 
disciples. It has grown since with the growing ex- 
perience of over half a century of Christian disciple- 
ship. 

Faith in the life and character of Jesus Christ as a 
supreme example of a life worth living and a char- 
acter worth having; faith in Jesus Christ as the su- 
preme interpretation of a God to love and to obey; 
and faith in Jesus Christ as a giver of life by his pres- 
ence and companionship with those that love him and 
desire to be like him : — Such is the last message of 
Jesus to his disciples, or rather, as much of that mes- 
sage as one of his disciples has learned in his life 
experience. 

Cfjrtet anb a iBteto Conception ot (gob 

October Seventeenth 

Christ gave to the world a new conception of God, 
a new ideal of humanity, and the vision of a new social 
order. Because of him we this day: 

Conceive of God not as a King to be feared, but as 
a Father to be trusted. 

Of religion, not as a reverence of fear which drives 
us from God, but as a reverence of love which at- 
tracts us to him. 

281 



Of fellowship with God, not through temple sac- 
rifice to appease his wrath, but through life-service 
rendered to his children. 

Of punishment, whether human or divine, not to 
deter the wrong-doer through fear, but to cure the 
wrong-doer through discipline. 

Of the divine government, not for the glory of the 
Sovereign, but for the benefit of the governed. 

Of human governments, not as a rule exercised by 
the few over the many, but as a service rendered to 
the many by the few. 

Of education, not to create an aristocracy of special 
culture, but to create a democracy of general intelli- 
gence. 

<3 #oble*s ILiit te a hopeless? ILiit 

October Eighteenth 

Godless is hopeless. If we let our Sundays become 
mere holidays, if we forget the message of God which 
our Bible conveys to us, if we think our church is a 
mere place in which to gather for lectures, if we lose 
worship out of our aggregate lives and worship out 
of our individual fives, if we cease to believe that there 
is a personal God and Father of us all who loves us 
and seeks our love, if we cease to seek that love and 
to live in personal relationship with him, if the school 
of philosophy which would take these faiths out of 
us has its way, and the tendency of thought which 
we sometimes see in America runs on to its comple- 
tion, we shall have a government from which liberty 
will be gone, we shall have a society from which 

282 



brotherhood will be gone, we shall have an education 
from which all the noble ends and unifying purpose 
will be gone, we shall have individual lives from which 
all hope and comfort in time of sorrow and trouble 
will be gone. If that time were to come, then no 
longer, when you laid your beloved in the grave, could 
you look for a reunion; no longer, could you hope 
for a life beyond in which you might correct some of 
the mistakes, the errors and the follies of which you 
have been guilty here; no longer, when you struggled 
with temptations without and fears within that were 
too strong for you, could you lift clasped hands and 
seek help from a power not yourself to strengthen 
and make you rejoice. Godless is hopeless. 

Mjat te Religion? 

October Nineteenth 

Religion is a life; theology is what we think about 
life. 

Religion is nothing if it is not a rule of life and of 
the whole life; a man is not religious at all if he is 
not religious in every part of his nature, at all times, 
and in all relations of life. 

Religion is not an opinion what kind of a thing 
conscience is; religion is not an opinion as to the 
basis of moral obligation; religion is obedience to 
conscience. 

Religion is not an opinion about righteousness, 
it is the practice of righteousness. 

283 



A religious man is hot a man who is learned in 
ethical philosophy, he is a man who counts righteous- 
ness above all expediences and all place and all ease 
and all comfort. 

A religious nation is not a nation that has an estab- 
lished church, a settled ritual, an avowed creed; a 
religious nation is a nation that has in it the suprem- 
acy of conscience, and when the stress and trial come, 
asks, not what is expedient, not what is profitable, 
not what is pleasant, but what is right. 

W&at ix fteltgton? 

October Twentieth 

Religion depends not on theories; it is the life of 
the conscience, it is obedience to the moral sense. 
Religion is the life of reverence. It is not a defini- 
tion of God, it is not a theory about God, it is rever- 
ence toward God. Religion begins in babyhood, 
when the child is not old enough to understand even 
the conception of God. Children, obey your parents 
in the Lord, for this is right, says the apostle, this is 
your righteousness. Reverence begins with honor 
for father and mother, and it goes out into reverence 
for superior men and noble men. 

And this reverence which begins with reverence of 
the child for its parents, and goes on with reverence 
to the idealized heroes of past history, reaches up to 
reverence to the Almighty and the Supreme. The 
evil of atheism is not that it is an opinion that there 
is no God — not that at all. Atheism says there is 

284 



nowhere in this universe any one wiser or greater or 
better than we are. That is the evil of atheism; it 
is concentrated self-conceit. It is irreverence; not 
a false philosophy of life. The evil of positivism is 
not in its philosophy. The positivism that says 
there is no God we can know anything about, we can 
only know one another, and can only worship our 
own idealized heroes of the past; the positivism that 
looks in the mirror and bows down and worships 
itself is another form of self-conceit, another form of 
irreverence. 

Mfjat te Religion? 

October Twenty-first 

Religion is the life of hope. It is not what the 
theologians call eschatology; it is not the theory of 
the future state; it is not belief in an immortality, a 
resurrection, a future heaven and a future hell; those 
beliefs may nourish religion or they may, as some- 
times they have done, interfere with religion; but 
religion is not that — Religion is the life of hope. 
It is the spirit in man which leads him to say, I be- 
lieve there is something better for the world than the 
world has yet come to, I believe there is something 
better for me than I have yet come to. It is the 
spirit which says, I am discontent with all that I 
have accomplished yet and all that I am as yet, but 
because I am discontent I will press on to something 
higher and better. It is the spirit which says : 

" O for a man to arise in me 
That the man that I am may cease to be." 

It is the spirit which urges a man on to a higher ancl 

285 



nobler, a diviner, a more splendid manhood. It is 
not looking on the bright side of things, it is not shut- 
ting one's eyes to the dark side of things, it is believ- 
ing that the world has something better in store for 
it, and that you and I have something better in store 
for us if we will press forward toward that ideal. 

Religion is the life of love; most of all, of love. 
The life of pity for the unfortunate; that makes one, 
though he turns the tramp away from his door with- 
out a dime (as he sometimes ought to), not turn him 
away without sympathy, and perhaps expressed 
sympathy, in the poverty which he has brought upon 
himself. It is pity for the unfortunate not only, 
but for the sinful. It is the spirit which turns the 
prison into a penitentiary. 

What i* Religion? 

October Twenty-second 

Deeds are more than words, and the best love 
shows itself in deeds; for love that is pity to the un- 
fortunate, mercy to the sinful, affection in the home, 
is service to all men everywhere. . And this is religion 
— not what we think about life, but what it is in us; 
for this is to follow Christ. We admire him, we 
reverence him, we love him, not because he framed an 
eloquent ritual, not because he formulated a wondei 
ful creed, not because he taught a new philosophy, 
but because, in the quietest, simplest, humblest 
most natural life, he never turned aside from thf 
straight path of duty, either driven by fear or at 

286 



tracted by interest. He revered his Father, and 
walked in a humility that was never self-degradation; 
He lived as one that sees the invisible, and men knew 
it; He was radiant with hope in the darkest night 
of the world's civilization, and he loved as never man 
loved before or since. To hope, to see, to love, to 
obey, to revere, this is religion. 

Inspire us all with this life; teach us to test and 
measure all things by this life; help us all to live this 
life which Thou hast interpreted to us by the life of 
Him who is the Son of God. For whose sake and in 
whose name we ask it. Amen. 

ftertoice for Cfjrisrt 

October Twenty-third 

To be religious is not to be a seer of visions and a 
dreamer of dreams. It is not to be a dweller on the 
Mount of Transfiguration. It is not to be rapt in 
sweet and serene meditation. It is to be yourself; 
and, being yourself, to take the nature which God has 
given you, and use it in his service by using it for 
your fellowmen. " He that hath my command- 
ments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." 
We all know the Twenty-third Psalm: The Lord is 
my Shepherd; I shall not want; and he that can sing 
it with glistening eyes counts himself religious. But 
the Twenty-fourth Psalm we do not know so well : 

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? 
Or who shall stand in his holy place? 
He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; 
Who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, 
Nor sworn deceitfully. 

287 



But it is more difficult to live the Twenty-fourth 
Psalm than to sing the Twenty-third; and it is just 
as religious. 

To love Christ, to revere Christ, to follow Christ, 
to make Christ the interpretation of the invisible 
and eternal — this is religion. 

It is loneliness in work that makes work hard. 
The solitary worker is a sad worker. He who works 
with Christ is never solitary and never need be sad. 
Work then becomes a privilege and a joy. 

No one truly follows Christ who does not desire to 
make disciples for Christ; who does not watch for 
opportunity to do so. 

<&uv jfatfjet 

October Twenty-fourth 

Christ was not a debater, but a witness-bearer. . . . 
He did not prove the existence of a God, but he said, 
" Our Father," and the hearts of men leaped up and 
answered to his words, because in the souls of men 
there is a perception of God, darkened though it be 
by an imperfect, an undeveloped, a sinful life. He 
saw that there were eyes that need to be opened, ears 
that need to be unstopped. So he told men what 
was the way to this life. " If any man will know of 
the doctrine, whether I speak of myself or whether 
my doctrine comes from God, let him do the will 
of my Father which is in heaven." " He that keepeth 
my commandments loveth me; he that keepeth my 

288 



commandments and loveth me, to him will I manifest 
myself." 

If I am not sure whether God is or not, what shall 
I do? Assume as a hypothesis that Christ may be 
right: go to the Father whom you do not know, and 
get acquainted with him by going to him. Say, 
" Father." 

Wf&z ©oor of ©pportunttp 

October Twenty-fifth 

The function of the church ... is primarily to make 
good men and good women. 

In vain you reform your ritual, in vain you recast 
your creed, in vain you rectify your political plat- 
forms, in vain you reform your industrial organiza- 
tions, in vain you pass the political power from one 
party to another party, like the shuttlecock between 
the battledores — in vain all this unless the men and 
women of the state, and of the church, are pure, true, 
good, honest. You cannot make a sound ship with 
rotten timber, and you cannot make a sound state 
with corrupt men. We abolish feudalism, we abolish 
slavery. Do it, and leave the old covetousness in 
the hearts of men who work and men who employ 
labor, and the old evil will appear in a new form, 
under free competition. Sweep one party out of 
power and put another party in power, and leave the 
old corruption in, and you will have a new ring in 
place of the old ring, and a new corruption in place 
of the old corruption; the blood poisoning will re- 

289 



main, and it does not make much difference what we 
call the microbe. Individual character is the essen- 
tial thing. There is something more to be done than 
to reform municipal governments, to reform state 
governments, to adopt policies — it is to make good 
men and women. 

Christ proceeded on the assumption that, if we 
can get rid of sin in the individual, we shall get rid 
of evil in the state; but if we leave the sin in the 
individual, all social reform will result only in a change 
in the form of social evil. 



®f)e Boor of ©pportunitp 

October Twenty-sixth 

Moses has told us how to make a good state. 

" Moreover, thou shalt provide out of all the people, 
able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating 
covetousness; and place such over them to be rulers 
of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, 
and rulers of tens: And let them judge the people at 
all seasons/ ' 

We cannot do that unless we have the able men, 
who are men of truth, who fear God, who hate covet- 
ousness; we cannot do that unless the men who are 
to elect our officers are men of truth, men who fear 
God, men who hate covetousness. 

Paul has told us what is the true solution of the 
industrial problem. 

" Servants, obey in all things your masters, accord- 
ing to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, 

290 



but with singleness of heart, pleasing God; an,d 
whatsoever you do, do it heartily to the Lord, and 
not unto men. Masters, give unto your servants 
that which is just and equal, knowing that you also 
have a Master in heaven." 

There is not an industrial problem that is not rooted 
in this; that does not depend on servants who are 
serving not with eye-service. You who are masters 
know that; you who are mistresses know that. You 
want clerks in your store and servants in your 
kitchen, who do not seek simply to satisfy your eye, 
and who require your watchful care, but who have a 
conscience that directs and a sense of responsibility 
to themselves and to their God. And, on the other 
hand, no servants, no employees, can ever secure 
their just and equal rights until employers come to 
recognize the other half of this prescription — Mas- 
ters, give unto your servants — not that which is the 
least you can give, the least you can get the service 
rendered for, the least possible wage, but that which 
is just and equal. We must have just and noble men, 
and God-fearing men, for employers and for em- 
ployed. Then the industrial problem is solved, and 
not before. 

tEtje ©oor of ©pportunitp 

October Twenty-seventh 

This is what the ministry is for, and the church 
service. It is to breed such an atmosphere, to in- 
spire such a spirit, that when men and women shall 
come into the church, before as yet the minister hss 

291 



uttered a word, they shall begin to feel the change 
as one feels the change when he rises from the mias- 
matic valley to the mountain heights above. It is 
to make such an atmosphere in the church that those 
who have come in sorrowing shall find God wiping 
away the tears from their eyes, and those who have 
come in distraught and discouraged shall begin to 
lift up their heads, and let the light of heaven shine 
upon them, and those who have come in careless and 
indifferent, and thinking that the earth is nothing 
but a place for making money, shall begin to see that 
there is some nobler end and feel some diviner aspira- 
tion, and shall go forth; the tempted, the discouraged, 
the self-conceited, to get, the one comfort, and the 
other courage, and the other humility, from the life 
and the character and the spirit of the Christ, mani- 
fested in the aspirations and prayers and praises of 
His followers. 

tEfje ©oor of ©pportumtp 

October Twenty-eighth 

The merchant is so. to carry on his business that 
his clerks will be better men; the woman is so to 
carry on her household that the servants will be better 
women; the statesman is so to administer in politics 
that every utterance of his shall appeal to the higher 
sentiment; the journalist is not to forget individual 
men and women in his journalism, and is to use the 
newspaper to lift men up, not to drag men down; 
the mother is to minister not to a household only but 
a home, and make not only meals but life. But the 

292 



one institution which exists for this and nothing else, 
the one institution which may center all its energies 
and all its life on this one object — to make men and 
women, is the Christian Church. For that it was 
organized; for that it exists. 

It is for this the Christ is given us; it is for this the 
story of His life is written in these Four Gospels; 
that we may see what manhood is, that we may under- 
stand what a right man and a right woman are. It is 
for this He gives us a gospel of the forgiveness of 
sins, that we may disentangle the feet that are in the 
mire, that we may heal the sick, that we may give 
sight to the blind. Every Christian congregation is 
a pool of Bethesda. All that gather here are somehow 
lame and halt and blind and diseased, and those most 
of all lame or halt or blind or diseased who know it 
not. And still the Master is here, and still he says, 
Wilt thou be made whole? and still with every bene- 
diction he bids you rise, take up your bed and go forth 
with a larger strength and a more splendid sense of 
duty. It is for this he gives his church power on 
earth to forgive sins; it is for this he gives us the 
gospel of power, that we may make connection be- 
tween the individual heart of man and the heart of 
God and put into the tempted the song, I can do all 
things through him that strengthened me. 

GHfje Boor of ©pporttmitp 

October Twenty-ninth 

It is to this work, then, I call you and I call myself 
this fall as we take up our work — to make men and 

293 



women like Christ; who shall meet temptation as 
he met his temptation in the wilderness; who shall 
carry the spirit of helpfulness into society as he car- 
ried the spirit of helpfulness into the wedding at 
Cana; who shall face the opprobrium of right doing 
as he faced the howling mob at Nazareth; who shall 
dare vested interests when they are vested wrongs 
as he dared the Pharisees in the Temple; who shall 
carry comfort and consolation into every home 
where sorrow has gone, as he carried them to the 
sorrow-stricken house in Bethany; who shall be 
able to say to the sinful and the outcast God forgives 
you; who shall love and serve; who shall rejoice 
with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep; 
and who, when death comes, shall look through the 
grave to the land which lies beyond, shall see the 
angels where others see but the dead, and know that 
the living is not to be sought in the tomb. As long 
as the Christian church does this work, as long as it 
promotes this higher life in men and women, so long 
the world will need it, so long mankind will come for 
it. This is what the anaemic village in New England 
needs, from which the life blood has flowed away, 
the red corpuscles of its blood gone, and it pale and 
gaunt and half alive; it needs, not a new school, not 
a new law, but a new life blood that only the church 
and the Christian ministry can put into it. This is 
what is needed in the fevered town in the far West, 
where the men run eagerly to and fro seeking they 
know not what, driven by the fire in their bones — 
it needs a peace of God that passeth all understand- 
ing, that shall calm and quiet and give stability. 

294 



®be Wi&t anb abuse of #ob'g <&itt$ 

October Thirtieth 
There are two common abuses in our time, which 
are after all very much the same, though the outward 
manifestation is different. The one is care, and the 
other is luxury. There is a familiar proverb that 
runs something like this: It is not worth while to kill 
yourself to keep yourself. It is a very homely text, 
but it is a very useful one. There are men who are 
killing themselves to keep themselves, and there are 
a great many women who are killing themselves to 
keep themselves. You have no right to do it. What 
doth it profit a man, or a woman either, to gain the 
whole world and sacrifice life in the process? If it 
is wearing out your life to keep house on your present 
scale, change the scale. You have no right to wear 
out your life for the sake of your own luxury, that 
you would agree; but you have no right to wear out 
your life for the sake of your children's luxury, or 
your husband's luxury, either. There are women 
who are destroying themselves to maintain spotless- 
ness, or to maintain order, or to maintain show and 
appearance and semblance equal to their neighbor's; 
women who are housekeepers, and not homekeepers; 
women who are breaking themselves down — aye, 
and though they know it not, breaking their children 
down and their husbands down by the very sacrifice 
of the soul to the material thing. And there are men 
who are doing the same, . . . who have undermined 
their lives in the endeavor to get things. 

Care is a serpent that has fangs — it poisons; and 
295 



luxury is the anaconda that winds himself around you 
in soft embrace and crushes you to death. 

The fundamental principle in life is this: Every- 
thing must minister to the higher life. 

Care 

October Thirty-first 

The remedy for care is not primarily trust that God 
will fulfil your desires; it is different desires. It is 
a heart set on things more sacred than commercial 
success, or competence and comfort for your family, 
or even life for your child. It is singleness of desire 
that, whatever it may cost you, God's kingdom may 
come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 
If the mother's supreme desire is for the life of the 
child, it is impossible for her to keep a quiet mind, 
however self-control may keep her unquiet mind hid 
behind a mask of tranquillity. If she has a divided 
heart, if she is in a conflict between maternal instinct 
and the higher desire that God should decide for her 
and for her child, her soul will be a battle-ground 
between rest and restlessness, in which the instinct 
and the faith will alternately triumph. But if she 
desires supremely that God's will should be done, if 
she would not decide the awful issue of life or death 
for her child if she could, if she is glad that Another 
has that responsibility and she would not share it 
with him, she will be free from care, and every fac- 
ulty will be left unclouded and alert to do its best 
service to save the life which it is her business to save 
if she can. 

296 



November First 

I imagine you coming before me and one after 
another saying, What shall I do, I want to seek first 
the kingdom of God? One says, I am a lawyer, 
what shall I do? I say, Go back to your office and 
carry on your administration of law so as to make 
justice regnant in the community. And another says, 
I am a merchant, what shall I do? and I say, Go back 
and write holiness on the bells of your horses; re- 
member that your clerks are your brother men and 
treat them as brethren. Another comes and says, 
I am a manufacturer, what shall I do? and I say to 
him, Treat the workmen that are in your employ as 
your brother men, and ask yourself not the question 
what is the least I can possibly give them and the 
most that I can get out of them, but what is fair and 
right and reasonable and just as between man and 
man, what I would have them do to me if they were 
employers and I workman. And the mother says, 
I have my little children, what shall I do? and I 
say, Love your little children, teach them to love 
one another, walk your own way toward God and 
lead them by your hand toward God. Do not leave 
your children to seek first the kingdom of God, nor 
your store to seek first the kingdom of God, nor your 
office to seek first the kingdom of God, nor your place 
wherever it is to seek first the kingdom of God — 
the kingdom of God is needed, just where you are. 

This is the kingdom of God : Righteousness, peace, 
joy in the holy spirit; holiness written on the bells of 

297 



the horses, holiness engraved on the pots and the 
kettles in the kitchen. 



CtjiHxrcn of <§ob 

November Second 

Are you a merchant? It is His winds that fill your 
sails and His forces that drive the busy wheels of 
your industry. Are you a lawyer? He also admin- 
isters justice. Are you a doctor? He made the 
human frame and stored it with the powers of re- 
sistance to disease and cooperates with you — and 
more and more the doctors are coming to see that 
God cooperates with them, and more they are hold- 
ing their hands back with caution that what they call 
nature but we call God may work with them and for 
them. Are you a teacher? He is the great truth 
giver, and gathers His pupils about Him; the plane- 
tary system is the first great orrery; the first lessons 
are written in the heavens. Are you a mother? 
More wonderful sculptor than Michael Angelo or 
Thorwaldsen, shaping the little child by forces from 
within, you are inspiring the babe as God inspires 
you, and God inspires you as you are inspiring the 
babe; by the life that is within you, He and you to- 
gether are shaping this child that is vital, living and 
immortal. You are doing God's work. You do 
not know it, perhaps; but whether you know it or 
not, you are doing God's work or setting your will to 
oppose Him and thwart it. 



298 



Cfttlbten of <&ob 

November Third 

In vain we try to satisfy our conscience by taking 
the standards which our fellow men give to us. In 
vain the merchant says, " I do no worse than my fel- 
low merchant in the trade." In vain the woman in 
society says, " Other women in society tell white lies 
as I do, and one must do so." In vain the lawyer 
says, " If I would win my cause, I must arrest jus- 
tice and falsify truth." In vain the preacher says, 
" If I speak the truth in this pulpit I shall make dis- 
turbance in my congregation; I had better speak 
with guarded tongue and gesture with gloved hands." 
When the merchant has come back to his home and 
the woman to her closet and the minister to his study, 
each must and does compare his life with some higher, 
ineffable, transcendent standard, and knows that all 
these human standards are idle, nugatory and vain. 
Though he shuts his eyes and will not look, though 
he shuts his ears and will not hear, still the voice of 
conscience speaks, still the vision of righteousness is 
before him, still he knows that there is another judg- 
ment than society can have, and still, whether he bows 
before it or not, in his heart of hearts he recognizes it. 

From shams, false pretense, and formalism, Spirit 
of God, deliver us. From doing deeds of charity as 
servants in hope of reward, Spirit of God, deliver us. 
From shallow conformity to custom, from seeking the 
applause of our fellow men, from pride of good works, 
self-conceit, and self-righteousness, Spirit of God, 

299 



deliver us. From mere unthinking imitation of 
others, even of our Master, in careless forgetfulness 
of the inner purpose of his life, Spirit of God, deliver 
us. Endue us with our Master's spirit that all our 
acts, whether of service or of worship, may be the 
spontaneous expression of that life of faith, and hope, 
and love which Thou dost freely give to us that we 
may be in very truth Thy children. Amen. 



November Fourth 

Oh! the misery and the meanness of envy — the 
most hateful child of a hateful mother. For of all 
the evil progeny born of the love of approbation, envy 
is the meanest and the worst. It desires naught for 
itself except superiority over its fellows, and this it 
seeks to attain, not by lifting itself up, but by cast- 
ing its fellows down. From the love of praise the 
transition is easy and natural to that spirit which 
hates to hear praise bestowed upon another. This 
spirit is a stirrer-up of strife; it poisons social con- 
versation with slander and detraction; it entices to 
treachery and falseness and all underhand measures; 
it undermines and destroys; it smiles upon its enemy, 
and smites him under the fifth rib. It is itself the 
mother of bitterness, wrath, backbiting, hypocrisy, 
treachery, murder, and all uncharitableness. Be- 
ware how you allow this evil spirit to rest for a day, 
for an hour, in your heart. Beware how you allow 
yourself in your inmost thought, in your most secret 

300 



feeling, to wish ill of another's enterprise or evil to 
another's fame. Hate this evil spirit with a perfect 
hatred. 

Wfyt Unfortunate jfflan 

November Fifth 

Alas for the man who imagines that the object of 
life is to make money, and who measures his success 
by the amount of his accumulations; who thinks that 
man was created to amass material things, who does 
not know that material things were created to serve 
the higher life of true manhood; who has been in- 
spired not by the enthusiasm of humanity but by the 
enthusiasm of accumulation. He gets the pleasures 
and the power which money confers, and for them he 
sacrifices the joy and the influence which life confers, 
and when the curtain is about to drop on the drama 
of his life, it is left for him to say: " And I hated all 
my labor wherein I labored under the sun: seeing 
that I must leave it unto the man that shall be after 
me. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise 
man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labor 
wherein I have labored, and wherein I have showed 
wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity." 

©fje Unfortunate jfflan 

November Sixth 

The self-satisfied seems both to himself and to 
others a happy man; but of Paul's experience of 
perpetual aspiration he knows nothing. He cannot 
understand the saying, " Not that I have already 

301 



obtained or am already made perfect : but I press on, 
if so be that I may apprehend that for which also I 
was apprehended by Christ Jesus.' ' He has over- 
taken his ideal, and can see nothing to be desired 
beyond what he already has and is. He is perfectly 
satisfied alike with his possessions and with his at- 
tainments. He has no interest in political reform, 
for his country is good enough for him as it is. He 
takes no interest in town or village improvements, 
for he says, " What was good enough for our fathers 
is good enough for me." . . . Alas for the self-satis- 
fied man! His peace is the peace of death. When 
he awakes, it will be to look back upon a life without 
achievement because without aspiration. It will be 
to confess : I have fought no fight, I have run no race, 
I have had no faith to see the invisible ideal calling me 
ever to go higher and yet higher. 

frelf-tHiil anu J&umtlttp 

November Seventh 
Self-will is the spirit of autocracy: it demands the 
submission of others. Humility is the inspiration of 
democracy: it recognizes and respects the rights, the 
liberties, the opinions of others. Self-will is the 
inciter of war; it will have submission at whatever 
cost of blood and tears. Humility is the brooder of 
peace; it substitutes persuasion for force; the in- 
vitation, Let us reason together, for the challenge, 
Let us fight together. Self-will is the parent of social 
wretchedness; it seeks only its own. Humility is 
the cultivator of a harvest of universal welfare, for 

302 



it seeks not only its own welfare but the welfare of 
others. 

The spirit of arrogance and self-will, calling itself 
by the boasted title of independence, breeds lawless- 
ness, war, and sorrow. The spirit of mutual respect 
and mutual dependence — that is, of humility — 
brings righteousness, peace, and happiness to him who 
possesses it, to the home in which he lives, and to the 
community which he blesses by his presence. 

Wht 37optf of g>orroto 

November Eighth 

Suffering is not punitive; it is redemptive. It is 
not sent as a punishment, but as an education. We 
are perfected in character in the school of suffering. . . . 
There are some lessons which can be learned only in 
the school of suffering; there are some virtues which 
can be formed only in the fire. How could one 
acquire courage if he never confronted danger? How 
could one acquire patience if he never bore burdens? 
How could one acquire pity if he was never allowed to 
see the suffering of others? There are three ways in 
which we may meet sorrow: as the Epicurean, who 
counts sorrow an evil and flies from it if he can; as 
the Stoic, who counts sorrow as evil and conquers it 
by his pride if he can; or as Paul, who counts 
sorrow as God's angel and asks, What gift does he 
bring to me from heaven? 

Sorrow does not only make us strong; it ordains us 
to a strength-giving ministry. " The God of all 

303 



comfort," says Paul, " comforteth us in all our trib- 
ulation, that we may be able to comfort them which 
are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we our- 
selves are comforted of God." He imparts strength 
and courage to us through danger that we may en- 
courage others; patience to us through burden-bear- 
ing, that we may inspire others with patience. 

Gfl&e 3fopa of H>orroto 

November Ninth 

We know God best only when he is our Companion 
in our tears; when we see him in the darkness; when 
he is with us in the furnace of fire. " As one whom his 
mother comforted, so will I comfort thee," says 
Jehovah. Did you ever notice how a mother comforts 
her sobbing child? The father stands by his side, 
brushes off the dirt which has come upon his clothes 
from the fall, and counsels him to be brave. The 
mother picks him up, holds him to her breast, stills 
his sobbing by her strange hypnotic power, pours her 
own life into his, and in a moment or two he is looking 
up into her sympathetic face with a smile through his 
tears. She has given to him her strength to meet his 
trouble. So God comforts his child. He takes us to 
himself, and we never see him so plainly or under- 
stand him so well as when he reveals himself to us in 
the chamber of sorrow. 

There are three ways in which we may serve our 
fellow-men — at least three. We may minister to 
their material wants, as Christ fed the hungry in the 
wilderness. This is the first and the simplest way. 

?04 



We may teach them the truths of life, as Christ taught 
them in the synagogue and in the fields; this is the 
second and the more difficult and higher ministry. 
We may enter into their fives and bear with them and 
for them, vicariously, the consequences of their own 
transgressions, as Christ bore them for us in his 
passion and in his cross. This is the highest and most 
difficult of all. " I rejoice in my sufferings for you," 
says Paul, " and fill up that which is lacking of the 
afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body's sake, 
which is the church." 

There is no teacher like grief if you will bow before 
it and say, " What lesson can I learn out of my sobbing 
heart? " 

C&rtet's J^elp in Rearing feorroto 

November Tenth 

If there are any who are carrying in their hearts 
sorrows for children or wife or friend or companion or 
country, who are bearing a heavy burden and keeping 
their faces bright and not letting others know they are 
bearing the burden, who are bearing one another's 
burdens, and so fulfilling the law of Christ, and yet, 
perhaps, not knowing it, or not considering that it is 
his law, — I wish I could make them see that they 
are doing what Christ did, in Christ's spirit, and that, 
whether they know it or not, it is the God in them who 
is giving them their courage. I am sure it would be 
easier for them to take up the burden and carry it if 
they had the companionship of a living and risen 
Christ in carrying it. 

305 



Christianity has . . . stretched over all calamities, 
burdens, sorrows and disappointments the bow of 
promise; last of all, it descended into the grave, and 
lo! that also was radiant, and the gate of Paradise. 

Whz ILttring <©oto 

November Eleventh 
The word Comforter, as you know, properly means 
Strength-bringer, and the Greek word, of which it is 
a translation, Paraclete, means one who hears an- 
other's call. So the Greek idea is, God is now so 
near that any man may call Him and He will hear 
the call; God is now so interpreted to men through 
Jesus Christ that any man may look upon Him, any 
man may be a Moses and see God in the mountain 
top, any man may hear His voice, for wherever God 
speaks and man listens is the Holy of Holies, any man 
may receive the vision that Ezekiel received, any man 
may walk with God and know His presence. Or if 
you turn to the English word the meaning is this: 
Wherever there is weakness, whenever there is any 
need of any kind, there the Strength-bringer stands 
to give the strength and the inspiration that is needed. 

We are continually asking for courage and forti- 
tude, but when the hard and perilous times come 
which mold our feebleness into strength and trans- 
form our timorousness into bravery, we do not see 
that our prayer is being answered; we send up daily 
petitions for patience, but when annoyances and 
perplexities throw their meshes over us and train us 
into the very habit we ask for, we fail to read in them 

306 



the reply of Divine Providence. Our heartfelt 
longing is for the development of the highest and 
noblest things that are in us, but our thanksgiving 
limits itself too often to the comforts and pleasures 
that satisfy our poorest cravings. We are thankful 
to be comfortable when we ought to rejoice that God 
will not suffer us to find comfort in any but the 
highest things. 

©ftree &mte of Happiness 

November Twelfth 

There are three kinds of happiness: pleasure, joy, 
blessedness. Pleasure is the happiness of the animal 
nature; joy, of the social nature; blessedness, of the 
spiritual nature. Pleasure we share with the ani- 
mals, joy with one another, blessedness with God. . . . 

These three types of happiness are not inconsis- 
tent. One may have them all. God does not re- 
quire us to choose. . . . 

We are marching to victory, and we are followers 
of a triumphing King. The joy of his life should be 
in our hearts and the light of his life on our faces. 

Pleasures belong to youth; joys to middle life, 
blessedness to old age. Therefore old age is best; 
because it is the portico to a palace beautiful, where 
happiness is neither withered by time nor destroyed 
by death. Yet one need not wait for old age. He 
who in the prime of life has learned this secret of 
immortal happiness can with Paul bid defiance to 
all the enemies of happiness. He welcomes troubles 
as contributions to his happiness because builders of 

307 



his character: " We glory in tribulations also: know- 
ing that tribulation worketh patience: and patience, 
experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh 
not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad 
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto 
us." 

Wfjp ate gou Jlot ©appp? 

November Thirteenth 

Are you happy? If not, why not? You ought to 
be; it is your own fault if you are not. It is not 
your fault that you have few or no pleasures. But if 
you have the right character, you will have blessed- 
ness; for blessedness belongs to character. If you 
have not blessedness, that is your fault. 

You have great ambitions? If you had millions, 
what good you would do with them in promoting 
missions, endowing hospitals, educating the ignorant, 
succoring the suffering! If you had eloquence, how 
you would plead the cause of human rights; how elo- 
quent you would be for the dumb who cannot speak 
for themselves! If you had the pen of a ready writer, 
how you would inspire men with your fancies or 
guide them in wise courses by your counsels! But 
you have none of these things. Your ambition is a 
great heartache. True! but you can have, if you 
will, the kingdom of God — righteousness, peace, 
and joy in holiness of spirit. Your life can be a 
silent standard to all men and women who come in 
contact with you. Your spirit of peace can diffuse 
itself, making you an unconscious peace-maker 
wherever you go. Your joy and fellowship with 

308 



your Father can make your life a song in the night 
and a gladness in the sunshine. 

3M|)2> &vt gou J|oi ^appp? 

November Fourteenth 

Perhaps sorrows have overwhelmed you. You 
have followed to the grave your best beloved. You 
have entered into the experience of Job and known 
in succession poverty, the anguish of a stricken af- 
fection, and the pains of an incurable disease. Still 
you can have happiness. " Blessed are they that 
mourn; for they shall be comforted." Your sorrow 
is meant to be a strength-giver to you and to equip 
you for giving strength to others. You are called 
by your Gethsemane to render the highest service 
which one can ever render in the kingdom of God: 
the service of rilling up that which is lacking of the 
afflictions of Christ in the world's redemption. Christ 
called his three favorite disciples to watch outside 
while he wrestled in agony within the Garden. He 
calls you to share with him in that wrestling; could 
he give you greater honor? Could he bring you into 
closer fellowship? 

You are poor. You have aesthetic tastes, but 
can buy no pictures; literary tastes, but can buy no 
books; you are a lover of nature, but can have no 
garden. But possession is not enjoyment, and en- 
joyment does not depend upon possession. The 
Corinthian Christians were poor. Not many wise, 
nor mighty, nor noble in that city were called to dis- 
cipleship. But it was to these poor outcast Chris- 

309 



tians Paul wrote: " All things are yours; whether 
Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, 
or death, or things present, or things to come; all 
are yours." 

Mftp &xt gem Jlot ftappp? 

November Fifteenth 

You are imperfect; you are not the man you would 
wish to be; you fail to accomplish what you are 
eager to accomplish; you are full of faults and pain- 
fully conscious of them. Nothing in the Book of 
Common Prayer appeals to you more than the Gen- 
eral Confession: " We have left undone those things 
which we ought to have done; and we have done those 
things which we ought not to have done; and there 
is no health in us." But still you can hunger and 
thirst after righteousness. Like Paul, you may not 
have overtaken, but, like Paul, you can press forward 
toward the mark for the prize yet to be attained. 
And this forever desiring and never being satisfied, 
forever aspiring and never attaining, forever hunger- 
ing and thirsting and never being so filled but that 
the hunger and thirst still continue, this also is to be 
blessed. Not the Pharisee with his " God, I thank 
thee that I am not as other men are," but the publi- 
can with his " God, be merciful to me a sinner," is 
the happier man. The pursuit of life is itself life's 
highest prize. 

You have many enemies. You have been cheated, 
misrepresented, slandered, cruelly wronged. Then 
you can gloriously forgive. You can be full of mercy 

310 



as your Father is full of mercy, and, in the immortal 
spirit of loving-kindness and tender mercy which no 
evil inflicted upon you is able to destroy, you can 
find a joy like that of Him of whom it was said, " He 
shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied.' ' 

Mhp are gou Mot ©appp? 

November Sixteenth 

You are surrounded by clamorous children and by 
perpetually recurring household cares, or you are in 
the competitions of a business which, in its incessant 
demands upon you, resembles a battlefield, or you 
are engaged in political life fighting enemies of your 
country, and required to be always wary and generally 
belligerent. But it is not necessary to fly away in 
order to rest. A man may possess the spirit of peace 
while he is environed by war; he may dwell in peace 
though the clamor of arms is outside of his tent or 
though the whirl of a thousand spindles is in his 
factory. A woman may be at peace though chil- 
dren are clinging to her skirts and clamoring their 
beseechings in her ears. It was just as Jesus Christ 
had come from the vituperative mob in the Temple, 
and was going to the more violent outcries of the mob 
before Pilate's judgment seat, that he said, " My 
peace I give unto you : let not your heart be troubled, 
neither let it be afraid." 

You suffer from flagrant injustice, your words are 
misrepresented, your actions misunderstood, your 
motives maligned. Others who have done little and 

311 



dared less step in before you and take life's prizes. 
Perhaps even your best friends misunderstand, if 
they do not misinterpret, you. What then? Have 
you never read, " The disciple is not above his master, 
nor the servant above his Lord "? " Blessed are 
they that are persecuted for righteousness' sake." 
For it is only by the resolution that triumphs over 
obstacles and the courage that faces danger and en- 
dures injustice that the kingdom of God is won. 

Jfour &nd)or* 

November Seventeenth 

I am a democrat in every nerve of my body, in 
every globule of my blood. And what I mean by 
" democrat " is this — that God has made this world, 
not for a few privileged classes, rich and strong and 
wise, but for all his children; and his Kingdom will 
not come until all his children have something like 
a fair chance to make of themselves what they can in 
the world, and to have some share in its joys and in 
its prosperity. And I am setting myself with clearer 
and clearer vision as the years go by to do what little 
I can to make this a world of universal humanit3 r . 
I care less about preparing men for heaven hereafter, 
and more for bringing heaven to earth; less about 
singing, " Heaven is my home," and more about 
turning home into heaven. 

And I believe — believe? oh, I am sure of it, sure 
of it — that there is One higher than the highest, 
and greater than the greatest, and wiser than the 
wisest, and better than the best, who is working out 

312 



this world destiny. And I — I do the little I can do, 
and leave the rest to God. 

Jfour gmfjor* 

November Eighteenth 

You remember in that story of the shipwreck of 
Paul he said that they threw out four anchors and 
waited for day. I have thrown out in my life those 
four anchors — my faith in goodness, my faith in 
the possibility of men's accomplishment of goodness, 
my faith in Jesus Christ as the ideal of goodness, and 
my faith in the divine helpfulness in the world to help 
me to goodness. And then I have waited for day. 
Not all is clear; the universe is still an enigma, there 
is a great deal I do not pretend to understand. 

And many things that were mysterious to me I can 
at least leave mysterious. I am not in a finished 
temple, I am in a temple that is building. What the 
temple will be when it is finished I do not know, but 
I can take my tool and do my little part of the carving, 
and leave the rest to him. And God is nearer to me, 
for every day is a creative day, and every hour is a 
redemptive hour, and he is in his world to-day as truly 
as he ever was in the olden times. 

a J&of& g>earcf) ©otoarb <&ob 

November Nineteenth 

I had an aunt who was a kind of second mother to 
me. Her husband, a minister, had left her in Maine 
to go and preach in Pennsylvania. It was before the 

313 



days of telegraphs. She heard of his sickness, started 
to Pennsylvania to nurse him, reached New York 
City, rang the doorbell of her brother's house, asked 
for her brother, and the maid at the door told her, 
" He has gone to Pennsylvania to bury his brother- 
in-law/' Widow, childless, she carried all through 
her life a singing, cheerful heart, and an unselfish 
service; and I wanted that — that power of cheer- 
fulness in sorrow, that power of control under great 
pain, that power of womanly purity. 

I said to myself: "These people are Christians; 
I want to find the secret of their power. I want to 
find how they get it. I want to learn where they 
have learned." And I began to study the life of 
Christ; I began to go to headquarters. And I very 
soon came to the conclusion that I wanted to be like 
Christ, as these friends, and others of mine were 
like Christ. 

W&t Uttiins #ofc 

November Twentieth 

To many in our own time, to many without the 
Church, to some within it, living companionship with 
a living God is an experience unknown. . . . They 
look back through the ages for some evidence of a 
God who revealed himself centuries ago; they look 
forward with anticipation to a God who will reveal 
himself in some future epiphany; but of a God here 
and now, a God who is a perpetual presence, a God 
whom they can see as Abraham saw him, with whom 
they can talk as Moses talked with him, who will 

314 



inspire them with courage as he inspired Gideon, with 
hope as he inspired Isaiah, and with praise as he in- 
spired David, they do not know. " Our fellowship 
is with the Father, and with his son Jesus Christ/' are 
to them sacred words, but they do not express a real 
experience. " I will not leave you orphans," says 
Christ. There are a great many orphan Christians 
to whom the Father is a vague tradition or a scarcely 
less vague hope; but not a living presence. . . . 

I believe that God is the Great Companion, that 
we are not left orphans, that we may have comrade- 
ship with him. 

Wb* ©uetft after <*£ob 

November Twenty-first 

The spirit of man longs for fellowship with God. 
Whether we know it or not, we are all in a quest after 
the Great Companion. 

No statements about God can satisfy the soul in 
this its quest after God. Nothing can take the place 
of the personal finding of him; personal communion 
with him; personal fellowship with him. . . . We 
must come to know him as Abraham knew him, r,s 
David knew him, as Isaiah knew him, as Paul knew 
him, or our quest will never be satisfied. " that 
I knew where I might find him! " is the cry of 
humanity, and only God himself can satisfy it. And 
he does satisfy it. The soul can find God. 



315 



{Efte (©uesi after <^ob 

November Twentyseco nd 

How did Isaac know God? ... Or the author of 
the Hundred-and-third Psalm? how came he to know 
that Jehovah forgave all his iniquities, healed all his 
diseases, redeemed his life from destruction, and 
crowned him with loving-kindness and tender mer- 
cies? Or Isaiah? how did he know that they who 
wait upon Jehovah shall renew their strength; shall 
mount up with wings as eagles; shall run and not be 
weary, and shall walk and not faint? 

The soul can know God, and know that God in- 
structs, guides, forgives, redeems, strengthens, in- 
spires the soul that trusts in him, exactly as Isaac 
and Moses and Samuel and David and Isaiah knew 
him and his helpfulness. 

tEJje ^faben presence 

November Twenty-third 

We fail to find God because we do not look for him 
in the right place. We conceive of him as afar off, 
and coming at times in great displays of majesty and 
power to show himself to men, as he appeared in 
strange symbolic glory to Ezekiel in the land of the 
Chaldeans. But the Scripture writers represent him 
as in all the common places and in all the common ex- 
periences of mankind. We think of him as mani- 
festing himself to a few elect souls who possess a 
genius for religion and a power of vision exceptional 
and rare; but the Scripture writers represent him as 

316 



the God of all men, whatever their temperaments or 
their dispositions. . . . The springs that water the 
valleys, the grass that springs out of the earth, the 
perpetual transformation of mineral into vegetable, 
life-feeding products, the ordinary movement of the 
planets in their orbits — these also declare the glory 
of God and show his handiwork. . . . 

As he is in all the common phenomena of nature, 
so he is an inspiring, guiding, protecting, redeeming 
presence in all the experiences of men. 

©!)c ©tbben presence 

November Twenty-fourth 

The secret and source of all life is God; he is over 
all and in all; in him we live and move and have our 
being. All human activities of every kind have the 
source of their power in the infinite and the eternal. 
. . . Every voice of conscience summoning to virtue 
or restraining from vice, saying, Thou shalt, or Thou 
shalt not; every regret for a misspent past, every 
sorrowful " I have left undone those things which I 
ought to have done, and I have done those things 
which I ought not to have done; " every inspiration 
to a higher, nobler, and better future, calling from 
the heights above, Follow thou me — yes, every 
incentive to generous or unselfish service and self- 
sacrifice for another, every impulse toward humanity, 
of pity for the sorrowing, or of mercy for the erring, 
is the voice of God speaking within us. Nay, more 
than that; all the common operations of our mind 
are, if we do but recognize it, witnesses to his pres- 

317 



ence from whom comes all our life, and by whom, if 
we will but allow it, all our life may be both guided 
and strengthened. 

And every virtue we possess, 

And every victory won, 
And every thought of holiness, 

Are his alone. 

®J)e Potoet of ^feiott 

November Twenty-fifth 

Like the Prodigal Son, man may wander away from 
God, but he cannot escape from himself, and there- 
fore he cannot escape from the divine in himself. 
However far he wanders, however self-debased he 
may become, he is still one of God's children. 

It is this fact which makes it possible for every man 
to know something of the divine life, which imposes 
on every man the obligation to have some spiritual 
acquaintance with the Father of whom every family 
in heaven and on earth is named, or at least to seek 
for such acquaintance, and be dissatisfied until he 
attains it. 

We that are Christians, having that same measure 
of Paul's faith, be it little or much, we know that there 
is a God, because we have seen him, we have walked 
with him, we have been upon the mountain and talked 
with him; we have been in sorrow and he has com- 
forted us; we have been in weakness and he has 
strengthened us; we have been tempted and he has 
enabled us to conquer; we have fallen into sin and he 
has lifted from us its heavy burden. 

318 



W$t $otoet of Uteion 

November Twenty-sixth 

This experience, or God-consciousness, in the soul, 
is of various kinds and of every degree, from a mere 
heart-hunger to a supreme spiritual quietude. Re- 
ligious literature is full of the reflections of this ex- 
perience, but one need not go out of the Bible to find 
illustrations of almost every phase of it. Sometimes 
the experience is one of longing for him — " O that 
I knew where I might find him; " sometimes it is a 
heart-hunger for him — "As the hart panteth after 
the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O 
God; " sometimes it is a new sense of his holiness 
and of the worth of his companionship produced 
by a consciousness of sin committed — " Against 
thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in 
thy sight; " sometimes it is a sense of gladness and 
of gratitude in his favor — " Bless the Lord, O my 
soul, and forget not all his benefits; " sometimes it 
is a supreme sense of his protecting presence — " He 
shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his 
wings shalt thou trust; " sometimes it is simply an 
assurance of peace in him — " Thou wilt keep him 
in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee; " 
sometimes it is a recognition of strength derived from 
him — " They that wait upon the Lord shall renew 
their strength; they shall mount up with wings as 
eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall 
walk, and not faint." But in all these and kindred 
passages the testimony is uniform — the testimony 
of souls to their own experience of God, distant or 

319 



near, desired or found, guiding, or guarding, or re- 
buking, or consoling, or pardoning, or life-giving. 



^Pursuing #ob 

November Twenty-seventh 

Once, in the woods, I watched a moth emerge 
from the chrysalis. He struggled slowly out. When 
through the open door of his prison-house he had 
partially emerged, he was still bound round with 
silken cords, from which with difficulty he emanci- 
pated himself before he took wing and flew into the 
realm of his newly bestowed liberty. So, from the 
chrysalis of our animal state, the spirit emerges into 
the freedom of the sons of God. The door of man's 
prison-house is opened for him, but he must find the 
exit, disentangle himself from the cords which bind 
him, and use his own newly acquired wings himself. 
The experiences of the sacred writers, as they are 
recorded in the Bible, abundantly illustrate the 
saying of Christ: " Every one that asketh receiveth; 
and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh 
it shall be opened." If we are to have this experience 
of fellowship with the Great Companion, we must ask, 
seek, knock. What invitation could be freer than 
that which is contained in the last chapter of the Book 
of Revelation, " He that will, let him take the water 
of life freely." Yes; but he must have the will, and 
he must exercise it. It is by the exercise of this will 
that he takes the gift so freely proffered to him. 



320 



Utetening to <§ob 

\ November Twenty-eighth 

The art of listening is an art; but of all forms and 
phases of that art spiritual listening is the highest. 
To listen to the voice of men, getting from your next- 
door neighbor some knowledge that you do not pos- 
sess; standing on the front platform of the horse-car, 
and getting out of the driver something you did not 
know before; talking over the gate with the farmer 
where you are spending your summer, and getting 
some new notion of life that you did not before pos- 
sess; getting from every kind of teaching and out of 
every man you meet some new impulse and some new 
equipment — this is art. But to stand face to face 
with the Almighty, to listen to the voice that makes no 
trembling on the air, to receive the impression that 
produces no external symbol on the printed page, 
to hear God — that is the highest of all. 

Hfetemng to &ob 

November Twenty-ninth 

If God is to be to us the Great Companion, we 
must form the habit of listening to God. Prayer is 
something else than talking to God. It is something 
else than asking things of him which we expect to 
receive. I have heard prayer compared to a draft 
on a bank, which the holder presents, expecting to 
receive the money upon it. This is a very inadequate 
and unsatisfying interpretation of prayer. Prayer 
is communion with God. It is the intermingling of 

321 



our life with his life. It involves listening to him as 
well as speaking to him. The answer to prayer is 
furnished not in things given, but in life imparted, 
in fellowship enjoyed, in counsel received, in uplift- 
ing, inspiring, life-giving influence. Prayer is living 
in the conscious presence of God. 

Prayer is carrying to God our sins, and receiving 
forgiveness; our sorrows, and receiving his comfort; 
our weakness, and receiving his power. In prayer 
is the secret of that indefinable spiritual life which 
defies definition, description, interpretation, which 
can be felt by the possessor, the effect of which can 
be seen in his character. 

Utetemng to <©ob 

November Thirtieth 

What do I mean by listening to God? I mean what 
the Psalmist meant when he said, " Be still and know 
that I am God; " when he said, " Commune with 
your own heart upon your bed and be still." I mean 
the endeavor to come into a consciousness of that 
divine presence, consider the problems of our life, 
the questions of our duty, the possibility of our ser- 
vice, and then, while we consider these as in his 
presence, waiting for the impulse that shall guide 
and the will that shall determine. In such a sacred 
hour the lower motives fall away, they lose their 
propelling power, and the higher and the diviner 
purposes come into play and assume their rightful 
authority. 

To pray is not to seek his alliance in our work, his 

322 



strength for the accomplishment of our will; it is 
first of all to make our will tributary to his will, and 
ourselves sharers in his work. 

To pray to God is to listen to God, and his voice 
is to be listened for in the impulses of our own souls, 
which come to us in those secret hours in which his 
presence excludes from our consciousness all other 
presences. 

®ije "?Xteion of <©ob 

December First 
Prayer is not a message by wireless telegraphy to 
some unknown station, remote, invisible, from which 
some wireless answer may return. . . . Prayer is the 
communion of spirit with spirit. The answer is a 
new inspiration of courage to meet danger; of patience 
to take up anew the burden of life; of hope to exor- 
cise the spirit of despair. To one who thus sees God 
and communes with God the companionship of the 
Great Companion is the most real, the most intimate, 
the most certain experience of his life. 

Prayer is talking with God. It is carrying to him 
our joys and our sorrows, our victories and our de- 
feats, our laughter and our tears. It is inviting him 
to share with us our life that we may share with him 
his life. Surely we should not shut him out from 
sharing our deepest experiences, nor shut ourselves 
out from him in the hour of our greatest need. Surely 
he who craved the companionship of his three dearest 
friends in his Gethsemane can understand our crav- 



ing his fellowship in our Gethsemane. " Yea, 
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me." 
How can he be with me if I do not invite his com- 
panionship? 

QBfje "^Xteton of <©ob 

December Second 

Into this companionship with God the soul comes 
not by much study, but by high and holy living. We 
understand our neighbor only as we feel what he feels 
and purpose what he purposes. We understand God 
only as in these sources of our being we are at one with 
him. Not to intellectual acumen, not to great 
scholarship, but to purity of intention and purity of 
imagination, to singleness of purpose, cleanness of 
thought, and tenderness of feeling, is God revealed. 
We come to the vision of him as we grow into oneness 
with him, and we grow into oneness with him by pur- 
posing what he purposes. If it is true that we shall 
be like him when we see him as he is, it is also true 
that we see him as he is only as we are like him. 

This experience of God in fellowship with man is 
all summed up in the counsel of Christ to his dis- 
ciples: " When ye pray, say, Father." This is what 
the Master seems to say: Recognize him as your law- 
giver, your provider, your counselor, your constant 
companion, your most intimate personal friend. 



324 



Jfaitf) in #oti 

December Third 

God does not solve our problems or fight our battles 
for us. He inspires us to solve our own problems and 
strengthens us to fight our own battles. Sometimes 
he does this by leaving us alone, for so he best calls 
out all our powers. 

This experience of loneliness comes to all of us 
sometimes, I suppose — an experience when our 
prayers seem to get no response, when, as a friend 
once said to me, they go no higher than the ceiling. 
This is not always a sign of our weakness, our sin, nor 
of God's absence or indifference. Perhaps he is 
testing us to see what we can do. Perhaps our lone- 
liness is a call to greater courage and more strenuous 
endeavors. Then let me go forward to feed the 
hungry, though I have only five loaves and two little 
fishes; go forward to fight the strong-armed evil, 
though I have only a sling and five smooth stones out 
of the brook. And let my prayer still be My God, 
though because of the gathering darkness I cannot 
see his form, because of the shouting multitude I 
cannot hear his voice, and in the tumult of my own 
troubled heart I can discern no consciousness of his 
presence. 

To believe that God will carry out our plans, that 
he will submit himself to our judgments, that he will 
fulfil our requests, that he will do our will, is not to 
have faith in God. To have faith in God is to be- 
lieve that he knows what his children need; that he 

325 



dares to allow them to take their own way and learn 
by bitter experience the lesson which they would not 
learn from teaching. 

draper Snstoerefc 

December Fourth 

One Saturday at Cornwall during my summer vaca- 
tion I received a telegram from the secretary of the 
National Prison Reform Association, asking me to 
preach the sermon at the annual meeting to be held 
the Sunday of the week following at Saratoga Springs. 
... I had made a little journalistic study of prison 
reform and had spoken briefly at one local meeting, 
but my knowledge was slight and superficial. The 
week which followed was especially absorbed in edi- 
torial work. I tried in vain to get a theme for my 
Sunday sermon. . . . When I took the train for Sara- 
toga Springs Saturday afternoon, I had not the faint- 
est conception of what my message the following day 
should be. . . . I was too tired, and, to tell the truth, 
too alarmed, to think, and on the train I laid my head 
back in the Pullman car and slept. I hoped that on 
arrival at Saratoga, I might get a clue from the secre- 
tary, but he was busy arranging the details of the 
meeting and was not suggestive. 

At length, burdened by a feeling of desperation 
indescribable, I went to bed, after the briefest of 
prayers, in which I said that I thought my Father 
had called me to Saratoga Springs, I did not know 
why, and, if I needed the discipline of a humiliating 
failure, I prayed that I might be enabled to learn the 

326 



lesson it was meant to teach me, and then — I tried 
to go to sleep. Did I? I do not know. I only 
know that in a very few moments I suddenly awoke 
to consciousness with my subject, my text, and my 
sermon in my mind. Criminals are the enemies of 
society. How does the New Testament tell us we 
should treat our enemies? " Dearly beloved, avenge 
not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath. . . . 
If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give 
him drink. . . . Overcome evil with good." The 
whole truth flashed upon me — now the axiom of 
prison reformers, but then radical even to them. We 
have nvj right to visit retribution upon wrong-doers. 
This is not the era of judgment; it is the era of re- 
demption. We have not the capacity to organize 
or administer a system of retributive justice. Our 
duty is to reform, not to punish, and to punish only 
that we may reform. We should abandon our sys- 
tem of justice and substitute a system of cure. My 
brain was on fire. I jotted the barest outline on a 
scrap of paper, and then tried to sleep that I might be 
able on the morrow to give to others the message 
which had been given to me. When it was given, the 
members crowded around me with congratulations. 
I was formally requested to furnish it for publica- 
tion. Some friend, knowing my habit of extem- 
poraneous speech, had arranged, unknown to me, for 
a shorthand report. It was published as reported, 
with very slight revision, and, I have been told, served 
as a new and spiritual definition of the essential prin- 
ciple of penology — fitting the penalty, not to the 
crime, but to the criminal. 

327 



©fje Boor 

December Fifth. 

Jesus Christ has not come into the world to serve 
as a substitute for the knowledge of God. He has 
come into the world to give the world knowledge of 
God. He has come that he might give eternal life 
to as many as God has given him; and this, he says, 
is life eternal, " that they might know thee, the only 
true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." 

We are not to know Jesus Christ instead of know- 
ing the only true God; we are to know the only true 
God through Jesus Christ. By Christ's fellowship 
with the Father, and our fellowship with Christ, we 
are to come into fellowship with the Father. Christ 
has lived, taught, suffered, and died that the hidden 
Presence might no longer be hidden to us; that we 
might better understand and have diviner intimacy 
with the Great Companion. . . . 

We can find him in the spirit in our own hearts, of 
truth and purity and goodness, which we miscall our 
better nature, but which is in reality God's own voice, 
God's own presence, God's own spirit, speaking to 
us and working in us — " never so far as even to be 
near," " closer than breathing, nearer than hands or 
feet." 

" If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my 
Father will love him, and we will come unto him and 
make our abode with him." 



328 



CftriSt'S fgofee 

December Sixth 

Comradeship with God is the secret, not only of 
joy and peace, but of efficiency. In that comrade- 
ship we find rest, not from our work, but in our work. 
When Christ says, " Come unto me, all ye that labor 
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; take 
my yoke upon you, and learn of me," he does not in- 
vite us to lay aside our work. He offers us rest in 
our work. The invitation is to those that are labor- 
ing and bearing burdens. The promise is to teach 
them how so to labor and how so to bear their burdens 
as not to be wearied by them. It is not a couch which 
he offers us, but a yoke; and a yoke is an instrument 
for the accomplishment of work. 

For a yoke is not only an implement of industry: 
it is a symbol of comradeship. The yoke binds two 
together. To take Christ's yoke upon us is to be 
yoked to Christ. Work with me, says Christ, and 
your work will be easy; work with me, and your 
burden will be light. This is what Paul means when 
he says, " I can do all things through him who 
strengthen eth me." We fail to recognize the spiritual 
forces in the world which are working for righteous- 
ness; we think we must conquer; we see how great 
are the forces against us; and we are dismayed. 
But he who has any experience of divine companion- 
ship learns the meaning of the saying, " One with 
God is a majority." 



329 



Cijrtef £ gofee 

December Seventh 

It is worry, not work, that kills; and how can one 
who is doing God's work in companionship with 
God worry about results? Worry is distrust; worry 
is disbelief. Trust and faith forbid worry. Christ 
has given to us the secret of peace in the sentence, 
" Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be 
afraid; ye have faith in God, have faith also in me." 
Faith in him means faith in a God who is in his world, 
who is working out the world's redemption, who is 
making of it in every generation a better world; 
whose resources are ample, whose hopes are infinite, 
whose results are sure; who will not cease his work 
until the kingdom of God has come and the will of 
God is done on earth as in heaven 

By doing the work which God has given us to do 
and leaving the results to God, we conquer all forms 
of anxiety, care, and worry. The continual prayer, 
" Thy will be done," is the secret of a quiet mind. 
It was the secret of Christ's peace. 

tEfje jfrutte of tfje Spirit 

December Eighth 

" The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, 
self-control." How shall we get these fruits of the 
spirit? We cannot make them. Fruits that are 
made are artificial fruits; real fruits grow. " Con- 
sider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil 

330 



not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you 
that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
like one of these.' ' Why not? Because they toil 
not, neither do they spin. Solomon's glory was 
wrought with much toiling and spinning, and was 
put on him; the glory of the lily is developed spon- 
taneously from within. How shall we get these 
fruits of the spirit? Certainly not by laboring for 
them. By just living in the spirit and letting the 
fruits grow. " What shall I do to be saved? " " Be- 
lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
saved." Do what he bids you, and let him do the 
saving. What shall I do to get this fellowship with 
the Great Companion and the fruits of this fellow- 
ship? Follow Christ in your life, and leave him to 
bring to you the fellowship and its fruits. 

tCfje Jfxuit* of tfje Spirit 

December Ninth 
Forget yourself, and think only of your duty. Do 
what Christ bids you do, regardless of the question 
whether he gives you peace for doing it or not. Read 
the Sermon on the Mount, and then try to live it. 
" Let your light so shine." Do you know, or can 
you find, any darkened home? Go into it and carry 
the illumination of a bright and cheery presence. 
" Love your enemies." Do you know any one who 
has done you an ill turn? Study how you can do 
him a good turn. Give the whole of your mind to 
doing each hour the duty which lies next to you. 
And when the day is over, waste no time in an idle 

331 



review to see whether you have done the duty well 
or not. Put your thoughts on the morrow, on the 
question what you can find to do to make some one 
happier and better for your being in the world. If 
you have peace, be glad of it. If you have no peace, 
go on just the same, resolved to show yourself, the 
world, and your Master how loyal you can be to your 
own life, to your fellowmen, and to him. 

tEfte jfruite of tfte fepirtt 

December Tenth 
We are to accept Christ as a friend, and render him 
our service because we believe in him and love him. 
The way to comradeship with God is to do for God 
and with God the work which God has given us to do, 
and leave him to do in his own time and by his own 
methods the work which he has not given us to do. 

The way to conscious fellowship with God is in- 
dicated by the Psalmist : 

Search me, O God, and know my heart: 

Try me, and know my thoughts: 

And see if there be any way of wickedness in me, 

And lead me in the way everlasting. 

Let God do the searching. Let God do the trying. 
Let God lead us into the experiences which will burn 
out the dross and purify the gold. The way to con- 
scious fellowship with God is indicated by the apostle : 
" Let us run with patience the race that is set before 
us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of 
faith." If we are willing to go where he is willing to 

332 



lead us, we need not fear that he will fail to make us 
over. If we will forget ourselves and put all our 
strength on running the race which he has set before 
us, we need not fear that we shall not eventually be 
crowned: and the crown is comradeship with God. 

©ebout Jforgetttng 

December Eleventh 

When we have lost comradeship with God by our 
own wilful wrong-doing, how shall we recover it? 
What shall we do with the follies, the faults, and the 
transgressions of the past? When our iniquities 
have separated between us and our God, and our sins 
have hid his face from us that he will not hear, how 
shall we regain our Great Companion? . . . 

You have sinned; you think, probably truthfully, 
that you have grievously sinned; you fear that you 
have sinned away the day of grace, as it is said; that 
you have committed the unpardonable sin; that 
there is for you no forgiveness. You are sorry for 
your sin; you repent of it. This does not merely 
mean that you are afraid of the consequences; that 
you would be glad to go on in sin if you were not 
afraid of the consequences. It means that the sin 
itself has become loathsome to you. . . . 

But though you repent of your sin, though you 
loathe it and want to escape from it, you cannot 
think that you are forgiven. . . . 

You are to believe that you are forgiven, not 
because you experience any change of feeling, but 
because Christ declares that he forgives you. He 

333 



declares that he will receive to the uttermost all 
those that come to him. His prophet declares that 
if the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous 
man his thoughts, and return unto the Lord, the Lord 
will have mercy upon him and will abundantly par- 
don him. You are to believe this, not because you 
have experienced the joy of pardon, but on the testi- 
mony of others — of the prophet, of the Bible, of 
Christ, and of Christians in all ages of the world. 
Until you believe this, of course you cannot have 
peace, for peace is the result, not of being pardoned, 
but of believing that you are pardoned. 

Befcout Remembering 

December Twelfth 

We are to forget ourselves and remember God; 
we are to forget ourselves by remembering God; 
forget our perplexities by remembering his guidance; 
forget our failures and follies by remembering his 
deliverance of us; forget our sorrows by remembering 
the comfort he has given to us; forget our tears by 
remembering that he has wiped them away; forget 
our sins by remembering his forgiveness. Surely 
Mary and Martha did not keep alive the memory of 
that sad hour when Lazarus closed his eyes in death, 
and answered no more to their caresses; the memory 
of the moment when, answering to the call of Jesus, 
he came forth from his grave into the sunlight, must 
have erased the other picture from their thoughts. 
Surely Peter did not live over again the scene of his 
cowardly denials by the fire in the courtyard, sur- 

334 



rounded by the jeering servants; the memory of 
that other scene when, by the quiet sea and in the 
early dawn, Christ gave him again his commission as 
apostle was the one on which his thoughts delighted 
to dwell. 

Bebout Remembering 

December Thirteenth 

The involuntary consciousness of the divine Pres- 
ence is the result of a voluntary attention to the effect 
of that Presence in our lives. If we wish that a sense 
of the Great Companion shall be always with us, we 
must fasten our attention upon those experiences 
which bear witness to his presence. This is the 
reason why the Bible lays so much stress on special 
remembrances of God. Attend, it seems to say, to 
his manifestations of himself in special experiences; 
so you will learn to realize that he is in all experiences. 
" Remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt, 
and the Lord redeemed thee." " Remember the 
days of old, consider the years of many generations: 
ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, 
and they will tell thee." " I call to remembrance 
my song in the night. ... I will remember the years of 
the right hand of the Most High." " Seek the Lord 
and his strength; seek his face evermore. Remember 
his marvelous works that he hath done." This last 
verse interprets the others: it is by remembering 
his marvelous works that we seek his strength and 
his face. Remembrance of his past graciousness is 
the way to win the consciousness of his continual 
presence. 

335 



Bebout Remembering 

December Fourteenth 

In this is the value of securing certain times and 
places for the special cultivation of our conscious 
fellowship with God. It is true that all places are 
holy places; that all times are sacred times; that God 
is in all our experiences. But it is also true that we 
shall not see him if we do not look for him, and that 
the mind is so subject to the law of association that 
we shall most easily see him in all places and at all 
times if we form a habit of looking for him in certain 
sacred places and at certain sacred times. It is 
doubtful if Ezekiel would have seen God in the desert, 
if he had not first seen him in the Temple. Even 
Christ had his special hours set apart to devotion. 
No man is so saintly that he can well dispense with 
aids to the devotional life which Christ found valuable, 
if not absolutely needful. This is the value of public 
worship. We go to church not for the sermon, or 
the music, or the prayers: we go for the atmosphere. 
When I am with a hundred devout men and women, 
who have in some measure a consciousness of the 
divine presence, or even a consciousness of their need 
of it, their vision gives vision to me, their imagina- 
tion enkindles my imagination, their heart hunger 
awakens my heart hunger. 

tCfte ©tfjer Room 

December Fifteenth 

" Let not your heart be troubled; ye have faith in 
God, have faith also in me. In my Father's house 

336 



are many dwelling-places; if it were not so, would I 
have told you that I am going to prepare a room for 
you? " 

The universe is God's house. This world is not 
the only habitat for the living. In his house are 
many rooms. Death is only pushing aside the por- 
tiere and passing from one room to another. 

It is not well to spend much time in endeavoring to 
pierce the impenetrable curtain and see what lies on 
the other side. It is best for us to put the main 
strength of our thought, the main stress of our pur- 
pose, on the duties which we have to perform, the 
service we have to render, the Father's will which 
we are appointed to fulfil in the room in which we are 
now living. 

Paradise is not a distant country; it is only the 
other room. 

" To depart, and to be with Christ, which is far 
better," is Paul's definition of dying. 

ILobe anb ©eati) 

December Sixteenth 

This is what we call dying; going from the darkness, 
the perplexity, the unsolved mystery of earth into the 
eternal light. To know even as we are known; to 
find an interpretation of all our uninterpretable 
longings, and in God's gift of life more than all our 
unutterable prayers had sought — how can love 
mourn that this gladness has come to the loved one? 

337 



Dying is freedom from temptation and from sin. 
It is escape from the double I; this I that would not 
and yet does, that would, yet does not. It is going 
from the seventh chapter of Romans into the eighth, 
there to abide forever. On earth our best music is 
dissonant, for our instrument is sadly out of tune. 
To die is to be set in tune to God's eternal keynote 
— love. It is to come into harmony with one's self, 
and therefore with God; it is to come into harmony 
with God, and therefore with one's self. 

a Hitoing Smmortalitp 

December Seventeenth 

Naturally a skeptic, never from boyhood able to 
content myself with faiths derived from others and 
based on their authority, making during my college 
days an examination of every article of the Christian 
faith except two, and pioneering my own way through 
a forest of conflicting opinions to my own religious 
convictions, yet there were two faiths which I never 
doubted, which, as far back as I can remember, seemed 
to be a part of myself — God and immortality. 

I never doubted that there is a Great Companion 
to whom I can go for a friendship inexpressibly sacred 
and inspiring. 

And I never doubted that I am I, a living person- 
ality more than the body which I inhabit, and as 
young now in all that constitutes real life, though 
dwelling in a body that is more than threescore years 
and ten, as I was when I was entering my teens, and 
with hopes more vivid and faith far more serene. 

338 



The invisible life is the real and the enduring life. 

The boy writes on the blackboard, " Honesty is 
the best policy." " Very good," says the teacher. 
" Rub it out." But he does not rub out honesty. 
The sentence has gone from the sight. But honesty 
continues to be the best policy. The merchant's 
life is based, not on the words written, but on the 
invisible life which they interpret. And that life 
remains — invisible and immortal. So of all visible 
expression. Burn the organ, music remains; burn 
the book, the literature remains; burn the picture, 
beauty remains; burn the body, the life remains. 

a Hibing Jmmortalttp 

December Eighteenth 

The continuance of personality does not depend on 
the continuance of consciousness. 

The babe begins to feel sleepy. A sense creeps over 
him that his consciousness is growing dim. If he 
could interpret himself to himself, he would say, 
" What is this that is happening to me? I am losing 
myself." He is fretful, because he feels a vague sense 
of impending peril. I am heretic enough to believe 
that the mother should cuddle the timorous child to 
her heart, and so let him fall asleep unfearing, and 
should continue to do this until by experience he 
learns sleep is not loss of life, but its restoration. 
The patient in the hospital faces the ether with the 
same dread. To lose consciousness is seemingly to 
lose one's self. But it is not in reality to lose one's 
self. The apparent ceasing of consciousness in death 

339 



is no more evidence of mortality than the ceasing of 
consciousness in sleep, or in the anaesthetic, would 
be, if we had never had visible evidence of its return. 

The continuance of personality does not depend on 
the permanence of the body. 

I am the same person at threescore years and ten 
that I was at seventeen, but I have not the same body. 
Probably not a particle of the body I then had have 
I now. The body has been in a constant state of 
decay and repair ever since I was born. The physi- 
ologists used to allow ten years as the average age of 
the body. If that is the fact, I have had seven bodies 
in my lifetime. . . . Why should I think that one 
more decay, more speedy than the others, involves 
the end of the personality which has survived all the 
other changes of the earthly habitation? 

Nor is there any reason for believing that because 
the brain is the instrument of thought, thought per- 
ishes when the brain perishes. 

a Hitring Smmortalitp 

December Nineteenth 

Death is not for any of us the destruction of the 
spirit, nor a long and dreary sleep of the spirit, but 
the separation of the spirit from the body, that it 
may enter in an unbodily existence upon a larger, freer 
life. In the person of Jesus Christ this change was 
ocularly demonstrated to his skeptical and heart- 
broken friends. His resurrection I accept, not as 
the foundation of my faith, but as an illustration and 
confirmation of it. 

340 



To sum up that faith in a paragraph: We live in 
two worlds — a visible and an invisible; a material 
and a spiritual. The invisible world is the real world, 
the important world, the lasting world. The mate- 
rial world is subject to constant decay; the immaterial 
world knows no decay. I am an invisible being in 
communication with invisible beings, some still in 
the body, some long since passed out of the body. 
The body is the instrument by means of which we 
invisible beings hold communion with the visible 
world, and the main means of communication by 
which we hold communion with other invisible per- 
sonalities, whether in or out of the body. Whether 
there is any other means, and if so, what it is, I have 
not here considered. Of course I believe there is 
another means, for I believe in prayer. There is no 
reason to believe that invisible personality ceases to 
exist because the visible means of communication 
with the material world is cut off. 

CCfje ligftt-$ringer 

December Twentieth 

Life is continuous; there is not a break; there is 
not a sleep and a future awakening; there is not a 
shadow-land, . . . life goes on without a single break: 
such was the essence of Christ's message. ... It 
is expressed by his promises. I give unto you, he 
said, eternal life. He gives it here and now; it is a 
present possession. Eternal life the Pharisees thought 
was to come in some final, far-off resurrection. Christ 
said, You have eternal life if you believe in the Son of 

341 



God. It is indicated in what he said to Martha when 
he came to the tomb of Lazarus. He said, Thy 
brother shall rise again. She said, I know that he 
shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. 
Christ said, No, you are mistaken; " whosoever 
liveth and believeth in me shall never die." For him 
who has faith in the Messiah there is no death; " I 
am the resurrection and the life." The believer 
takes that resurrection and lives on with an unbroken 
life. The thread in the weaver's loom is not cut; 
it simply disappears from human vision. 

W$z Jfirs$t=4fnut* of JE^tm tfjat g>lept 

December Twenty-first 

The important and the only important fact is that 
the continuity of his life was visibly attested to his 
disciples, and from this visible attestation of the con- 
tinuity of his life they drew their faith and hope and 
courage; on this ocular demonstration that he was 
still living, that it was not in the power of Pilate to 
put him to death, or the broken heart to slay him, or 
the tomb to hold him in prison, the Church, and with 
it organized Christianity, is historically founded. 
For Christianity is not merely a new ethical phi- 
losophy; it is a great historic fact — the fact that 
the World-Deliverer has come, that death has had 
no power over him, that he is still with his Church 
to the end of time, conquering and to conquer. 

What the New Testament represents as true re- 
specting Jesus Christ, it represents as true of Christ's 
followers. He is the first-fruits of them that sleep. 

342 



Their resurrection is like his resurrection, their life 
is like his life, as their death is like his death. They 
are not raised from the dead by a power acting on 
them from without; they rise from the dead as the 
bird from its egg, as the plant from its seed. The 
sons of God have in themselves the immortality of 
their Father. He that liveth and believeth in Christ 
does not die and rise again from the dead — he shall 
never die. 

BCfte jfiv&Uffxuite of Qtfjem tfjat g>Iept 

December Twenty-second 
As a caterpillar, seeing one of his kin enter a chrys- 
alis and emerge a butterfly, might reason that he 
entered his tomb only to prepare for his resurrection, 
so the Christian, seeing the unconquerable life of his 
Lord, thereby interprets the intimations of immor- 
tality in his own soul. We always find the tomb 
empty and only the grave-clothes lying there. While 
we, like Mary, weep at the grave, our friend, like 
Christ, unrecognized, stands at our side and speaks 
our name. The angels always wonder to find us 
still seeking the living among the dead. Christ's 
resurrection interprets and illustrates his saying that 
the gates of Hades shall not prevail against his Church. 
The stone of the tomb is always rolled away, the 
dead have always emerged from it. 

Not spilt like water on the ground, 
Not wrapped in dreamless sleep profound, 
Not wandering in unknown despair 
Beyond thy voice, thy arm, thy care, 
Not left to die like fallen tree: 
Not dead, but living unto thee. 

343 



tEfje jfir$t=Jfrutts of {Efjem tftat &ltpt 

December Twenty-third 

There is a real decay which destroys the husk, 
but the husk is destroyed that the seed emancipated 
may rise into the light and air of the world above its 
prison-house. So there is a death which destroys 
the body; this death is real; the sicknesses and 
pains which accompany us in this life are meant to 
be reminders of the fact that for us emancipation is 
coming; but pain, sickness, and death are all the 
instruments for emancipation; and we ourselves, 
the true, the divine, the immortal selves, are un- 
touched by them. 

Think not, O mother, of your child as lying lonely 
in the grave, the snow its winding-sheet or the spring 
flowers its funeral offerings. He is not there, he 
never was there. You have not committed him to 
the grave; you are not to go there in quest of him. 
You have given him back to the Father who gave 
him to you. You have put him in the arms of Christ, 
that Christ may bless him. The voice of death is 
but the voice of the Master saying to you, " Suffer 
the little children to come unto me, and forbid them 
not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' ' 

#oto g>fcaU We ®J)ntfe of tjje ©eab? 

December Twenty-fourth 
I think, then, of death as a glad awakening from 
this troubled sleep which we call life; as an emanci- 
pation from a world which, beautiful though it be, 

344 



is still a land of captivity; as a graduation from this 
primary department into some higher rank in the 
hierarchy of learning. I think of the dead as pos- 
sessing a more splendid equipment for a larger life 
of diviner service than was possible to them on earth 
— a life in which I shall in due time join them if I 
am counted worthy of their fellowship in the life 
eternal. 

Do they know us, love us, hope for our coming? 
Shall we know them, love them, and may we hope 
for their fellowship? Surely. What is there left 
to be immortal in us if love and hope die? To exist 
without love and hope is not to live; to exist with 
hope always disappointed and love always denied 
would hardly be to live. What Scripture and phi- 
losophy alike promise to us is eternal life, not eternal 
sleep, and faith, hope, and love are the essentials of 
life. 

J^oto g>fjall We TOjinfe of tfje ©eab? 

December Twenty-fifth 
I would not, if I could, stand at the open window 
and peer into the unknown beyond. I am sure that 
He whose mercies are new every morning and fresh 
every evening, who brings into every epoch of my 
life a new surprise, and makes in every experience a 
new disclosure of his love, who sweetens gladness 
with gratitude, and sorrow with comfort, who gives 
the lark for the morning and the nightingale for the 
twilight, who makes every year better than the year 
preceding, and every new experience an experience 

345 



of his marvelous skill in gift-giving, has for me some 
future of glad surprise which I would not forecast if I 
could. 

I know not what the future hath 

Of marvel or surprise, 
Assured alone that life and death 
His mercy underlies. 

I know not where his islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air; 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond his love and care. 



Wf)t practice of Smmortalttp 

December Twenty-sixth 

" Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst 
after righteousness, for they shall be filled.' ' Do we 
hunger and thirst after righteousness? " Add to 
your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to 
knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; 
and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly 
kindness; and to brotherly kindness love." Is this 
the sum in addition which we are really making in 
our lives? Or is it, add to your house lands; and to 
your lands furniture; and to your furniture luxurious 
living; and to your luxurious living stocks and bonds; 
and to your stocks and bonds social position? 

Paul promises eternal life " to them who by patient 
continuance in well-doing seek for glory, and honor, 
and immortality." 

If we habitually look on the things which are seen 
and are temporal, what reason have we to expect 
that we shall have faith in the things which are not 
seen and are eternal? Faith in immortality is look- 

346 



ing at the things which are not seen. It is not a 
conclusion reached by demonstration; it is a habit 
of mind. 

If we are to pluck the fruit from the tree of life, 
we must have a right to it. If we would have a 
rational hope in life hereafter, we must have the im- 
mortal life here. To have faith in immortality we 
must practise immortality. 

©eatf) te ©ome=Commg 

December Twenty-seventh 

Death is home-coming. " I go," Christ says, " to 
prepare a place for you." We set sail upon an un- 
known sea, but we go not to a strange land. Here we 
are pilgrims and strangers; there we shall be at 
home. 

When we are summoned to our departure, though 
the ship be strange and the sea unknown, we shall 
be embarking for a land where friends will be await- 
ing us. To fall asleep here, to wake up there and find 
ourselves at home — how strange will seem the sud- 
den transition! 

Picture death no longer as a skeleton with scythe 
and hour-glass; that is pagan. See him luminous 
and radiant, the cross in his hand, a smile upon his 
lips, and from him the invitation, Come unto me, ye 
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest, and I will give you life. 

347 



I 



©eatfj i& Unmooring 

December Twenty-Eighth 

Death is unmooring. " The time of my unmoor- 
ing, " says Paul, " is at hand." The ship is fastened 
to the wharf, lying there to be finished. It stands in 
the stays, and the workmen are still upon it with 
hammer and saw. Such are we in this life. No 
man is ever finished. We are here in the making. 
We are upon the stays, where with tool and imple- 
ment, with saw and hammer, we are wrought upon, — 
sometimes very much to our discontent, — until by 
a long, slow process a man is made; and then when 
the time has come and God is ready, he knocks away 
the underpinning, and the ship breaks from its ways 
out into the element which we do not understand, 
but the element for which God is preparing him. 

Comfort in £j>orroto 

December Twenty-ninth 

A pestilence broods over a great city with its dark 
wings, and every night the husband goes to his cot- 
tage home wondering whether he may not find that 
the fatal destroyer has entered there, and the wife 
that he left blooming in the morning he may find 
stricken at night. One evening he comes, and the 
house is closed, and the windows dark, and he knocks 
and there is no answer, and he rings and he gets no 
response, and his heart sinks within him as he thinks 
that she is stricken and is gone. But, as he looks and 
watches, suddenly he discerns on the door, in the 

348 



darkening twilight, a little paper pinned, and he 
plucks it off, and opens it, and reads it, and it brings 
him a message from his wife — " Some one has come 
for me, and taken me up into the mountains, where 
there is no malaria, where there is no disease, where 
there is no danger; I am safe there, and the means 
are here for you to follow me." And how the heart 
and the life spring again to his cheek, and the bitter 
sorrow turns into an exhilaration, an ecstasy, a joy! 
So we come to the house that held our beloved. It is 
dark, and out of the windows that shone with the 
light of love, no light is shining. We are heart- 
broken; until we turn and find here this word brought 
to us: " That loved one has gone to the mountains, 
where there is no pain, nor sorrow, nor temptation, 
nor disease, but the eternal flowers and the everlast- 
ing sunlight; follow thou on." Oh! it is not strange 
that in the heart of man, where before there was only 
the throb of anguish, and into the lips of men, where 
before there was only the long, long wail of sorrow, 
this message of the everlasting Christ has put the 
throb of exhilaration and the song of triumph. It 
is not strange that we have learned to hang upon our 
doors no crape, but flowers. 



ZEfje Jfjecestfttp of JJrogre** 

December Thirtieth 

Never say you are too old. You do not say it now, 
perhaps; but by and by, when the hair grows gray 
and the eyes grow dim and the young despair comes 

349 



to curse the old age, you will say, " It is too late for 
me." Never too late! Never too old! How old 
are you, — thirty, fifty, eighty? What is that in 
immortality? We are but children. . . . You have 
eternity before you. . . . Begin from the present, 
with all its treasury of good, — ay, and with all its 
treasury of evil. And, keeping the pathway un- 
broken from the past to the future, lead on to life, 
to larger life, and yet larger life, answering the call- 
ing of Him whose call is ever upward, upward. 

Whatever you have achieved in yourself, in vic- 
tory over your passion, over your appetite, over your 
pride, over your lower nature, God says, " There is 
no time to sit down and recount the victories that 
are past — no time to write bulletins. Go higher, 
— higher!" And this Voice that calls us higher 
is not like that voice which leads him who follows it 
only to perish on the mountain-peak amid snow and 
ice, while above the sun of glory shines and below 
the pastures feed the flocks with their verdure. 
This Voice calls us higher, yet higher, as the sun calls 
the lark, whose song drops down to earth from his 
winged flight, and the end of the ascending is the 
bosom of our God. 

Christ is in his world — he is not dead! he is not 
dead! he is marching still, and more and more the 
recruits are gathering behind and following after 
him; for to follow Christ is to seek to carry faith to 
eyes that are blind, and hope to hearts that are de- 
spairing, and help to souls that are helpless. 

350 



®t)e &ccepteb ®tme 

December Thirty-first 

What is the promised day of the Lord? It is a 
day when there shall be " upon the bells of the horses 
righteousness unto the Lord;" when "all thy chil- 
dren shall be taught of the Lord;" when "out of 
Zion shall go forth the law, and . . . nation shall not 
lift up sword against nation; " when " they shall sit 
every man under his vine and his fig-tree, and none 
shall make them afraid." The public honesty which 
makes business on a credit basis possible is the King- 
dom of God. The public school is the Kingdom of 
God. International law and international peace 
based on international law is the Kingdom of God. 
The distribution of wealth is the Kingdom of God. 
The Kingdom of God is here. The day of salvation 
has dawned. Whatever merchant is promoting the 
spirit of honesty and fair dealing in business, what- 
ever teacher is promoting a universal education and 
quickening the conscience and reverence of his pupils, 
whatever statesman is leading his nation toward 
higher ideals of justice and so toward the consum- 
mation of peace, whatever reformer is promoting 
a more equable distribution of wealth, whatever 
father or mother is sowing in the child's heart the 
seeds of goodness, truth, and purity, whatever priest 
or preacher is leading men toward the practice of 
justice, mercy, humility, and reverence, is working 
in the Kingdom of God. We are already in the 
Kingdom of Heaven. We need not wait for any more 
splendid unveiling of God, any more assurance of the 

351 



forgiveness of sins, any more direct call to duteous 
service. The Master is come, and calleth for thee. 

" Wherever the gentle heart 

Finds courage from above, 
Where'er the heart forsook 

Warms with the breath of love, 
Where faith bids fear depart, 

City of God, thou art. 

Where in life's common ways 

With cheerful feet we go, 
When in his steps we tread 

Who trod the way of woe, 
Where he is in the heart, 

City of God, thou art." 



352 



11 Lord, from whom all good 
things do come; grant to us, thy 
humble servants, that by thy holy in- 
spiration we may think those things 
that are good, and by thy merciful 
guiding may perform the same; 
through our Lord Jesus Christ" 



353 



APPENDIX 

The selections in this book are taken, by permission, from the 
writings of Lyman Abbott, D.D., in The Outlook and in the books 
designated in the following index: 

JANUARY 

1 Life That Really Is, S. 8, pp. 8-9. 

2 Outlook, Jan. 14, 1893. Last Days of Jesvs Christ, p. 15. 

3 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 6, 7. 
Outlook, Jan. 30, 1909. 

4 Outlook, before 1910. 

5 The Great Companion, pp. 137-139. 

6 Outlook, Oct. 10, 1908. Outlook, Aug. 8, 1908. 

7 The Great Companion, pp. 149-150. 

8 Outlook, April 9, 1904. 

9 Outlook, July 6, 1907. 

10 Outlook, July 25, 1908. Problems of Life, p. 145. 

11 New Streams in Old Channels, p. 263. 

12 Outlook, Aug. 1, 1908. 

New Streams in Old Channels, p. 221 . Outlook, July 11, 1908. 

13 Outlook, March 5, 1919. 

14 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 176-179. 
Twentieth Century Crusade, p. 78. 

15 Outlook, July 18, 1908. Problems of Life, p. 268. 

16 Life That Really Is, S. 24, pp. 9, 10, 7. 
New Streams in Old Channels, p. 237. 

17 Problems of Life, pp. 50-51. 

18 Outlook, Nov. 29, 1913. Outlook, Nov'. 8, 1913. 

19 Life That Really Is, S. 14, pp. 8-10. 

20 Life That Really Is, S. 23, pp. 7-8. 
Outlook, April 14, 1900. 

21 Life That ReaUy Is, S. 23, pp. 11-13. 

355 



22 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 29-32. 

23 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 34, 29. 

24 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 34-35. 

25 Outlook, April 2, 1919. 

26 Outlook, Aug. 15, 1908. 

27 Outlook, Oct. 13, 1906. 

28 Las£ Da?/s o/ Jesws Christ, pp. 19-21. 

29 Li/e That Really Is, S. 22, p. 13. 

30 Outlook, Aug. 30, 1913. 

31 The Temple, pp. 3-4. 

FEBRUARY 

1 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 216-217, 215. 
Outlook, Aug. 29, 1908. 

2 The Temple, pp. 7-8. 

3 The Temple, pp. 11-12. 

4 TTie Temple, pp. 13-14. 

5 Outlook, Aug. 1, 1908. 7%e Temple, pp. 25, 31, 35. 

6 Li/e 7%a* Really Is, S. 4, p. 10. 

7 America in the Making, pp. 46^47. 
Spirit of Democracy, p. 167. 

Lzje Tfarf Really Is, S. 13, p. 12. 

8 The Temple, pp. 42-43, 45-46. 

9 New Streams in Old Channels, p. 231. 

10 The Temple, pp. 76-77. 

11 The Temple, pp. 81-82. 

12 Reminiscences, pp. 180-181. Spirit of Democracy, p. 196. 

13 The Temple, pp. 105, 107-110. 

14 The Great Companion, pp. 156-158. 

15 The Temple, pp. 117-121. 

16 The Temple, pp. 123-124. 

17 The Temple, pp. 124-125. 

18 Problems of Life, pp. 25-26. 
Christianity and Social Problems, p. 72. 

19 The Temple, pp. 133-136. 

20 The Temple, pp. 139-140, 156. 

21 Life That Really Is, S. 8, p. 1. 

22 America in the Making, pp. 103-104. 

356 



23 Christ's Secret of Happiness, p. 62. 
Problems of Life, pp. 48, 49. 

24 Life That Really Is, S. 8, p. 2. 

25 Z#e 7%a* Really Is, S. 8, p. 10. 

26 Life That Really Is, S. 20, pp. 4-5. 

27 Lz/e 77ia* #eatf?/ is, S. 20, pp. 7-8. 

28 Life That Really Is, S. 23, pp. 9-10. 

29 Li/e That Really Is, S. 20, pp. 8-9. 

MARCH 

1 Life That Really Is, S. 20, pp. 9-10. 

2 Life That Really Is, S. 20, pp. 10, 11. 

3 Last Days of Jesus Christ, pp. 29-30. 

4 Problems of Life, p. 259. 

5 Life That Really Is, S. 17, pp. 8, 9. 

6 Signs of Promise, p. 239. 

New Streams in Old Channels, p. 293. 

7 The Great Companion, pp. 140-143. 

8 Signs of Promise, pp. 164-165. Outlook, Jan. 20, 1900. 

9 Christianity and Social Problems, p. 3. 
Life That Really Is, S. 15, p. 27. 

10 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 106, 107. 

11 Life That Really Is, S. 21, p. 2. Problems of Life, p. 241. 

12 Life That Really Is, S. 21, p. 13. 

13 Problems of Life, pp. 278-279. 

New Streams in Old Channels, p. 271. 

14 Problems of Life, pp. 281, 287. 

15 Outlook, before 1910. 

16 Outlook, July 13, 1907. 

17 Problems of Life, pp. 64-65. 

18 Problems of Life, p. 64. 

New Streams in Old Channels, p. 236. 

19 Outlook, Aug. 10, 1912. 

20 Outlook, 1909. 

21 Outlook, July 18, 1908. 

22 Signs of Promise, pp. 14-15. 

23 Outlook, Aug. 3, 1907. Signs of Promise, p. 14. 

24 Outlook, July 12, 1916. 

357 



25 Outlook, Feb. 6, 1909. Outlook, Dec. 6, 1913. 

26 Outlook, Nov. 8, 1913. Outlook, July 25, 1908. 

27 Li/e That Really Is, S. 2, pp. 10-11, 2. 

28 Lz/e That Really Is, S. 9, pp. 10-11. 

29 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 108-110, 204-205. 

30 Life That Really Is, S. 25, pp. 2-3. 

31 Problems of Life, pp. 42, 46. Life That Really Is, S. 3, p. 11 , 

APRIL 

1 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 38, 39. 

2 Christian Ministry, pp. 299-300. 

3 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 42, 44. 
Life That Really Is, S. 1, p. 13. 

4 Life That Really Is, S. 15, pp. 5-6. 

5 Life That Really Is, S. 15, pp. 3-4. 

6 Outlook, April 28, 1900. 

7 Outlook, April 28, 1900. Problems of Life, p. 80. 

8 Outlook, Jan. 9, 1909. Signs of Promise, p. 30. 
New Streams in Old Channels, p. 160. 

9 Outlook, Jan. 9, 1909. Outlook, April 30, 1919. 

10 Outlook, April 28, 1900. 

Life That Really Is, S. 23, pp. 7-8. 

11 Outlook, April 16, 1919. 

12 Problems of Life, pp. 195, 25. 

New Streams in Old Channels, p. 77. 

13 New Streams in Old Channels, p. 78. 
Outlook, Aug. 7, 1918. 

14 Problems of Life, pp. 243, 244. 

15 Problems of Life, pp. 46-48. 

16 Signs of Promise, p. 254. 

17 Signs of Promise, pp. 252-253. Reminiscences, p. 378. 

18 Signs of Promise, pp. 250, 251. Outlook, Sept. 15, 1906. 

19 Signs of Promise, p. 255. 

20 Life That Really Is, S. 22, pp. 10-11. 

21 The Temple, pp. 159-161. 

22 The Temple, pp. 162-163. 

23 The Temple, pp. 164-165. 

New Streams in Old Channels, p. £0*. 

358 



24 The Temple, pp. 166-168. 

25 The Temple, pp. 170-171. 

26 Signs of Promise, pp. 241, 242. 

27 Signs of Promise, pp. 235, 237. 

28 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 14-16. 

29 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 16-17, 20. 

30 Problems of Life, pp. 34, 30. 

MAY 

1 Life That Really Is, S. 15, p. 3. Outlook, Dec. 6, 1913. 

2 The Home Builder, pp. 3-8. 

3 The Home Builder, pp. 11-12, 13-15. 

4 The Home Builder, pp. 15-17. 

5 The Home Builder, pp. 21-22, 25-27. 

6 The Home Builder, pp. 31-35. 

7 The Home Builder, pp. 39-41. 

8 The Home Builder, pp. 45-46. 

9 The Home Builder, pp. 46-51. 

10 The Home Builder, pp. 53-56. 

11 The Home Builder, pp. 57-58. 

12 The Home Builder, pp. 66-71. 

13 The Home Builder, pp. 75-84. 

14 The Home Builder, pp. 92-96. 

15 The Home Builder, pp. 99-105. 

16 The Home Builder, pp. 107-110. 

17 The Home Builder, pp. 127-128, 113. 

18 Spirit of Democracy, pp. 51-58. 

19 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 212-213. 

20 New Streams in Old Channels, p. 214. 
Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 365-366. 

21 The Temple, p. 60. 

Christianity and Social Problems, p. 158. 

22 Outlook, April 16, 1919. 

New Streams in Old Channels, p. 256. 

23 Outlook, Nov. 28, 1917. 
Christianity and Social Problems, p. 151. 

24 Spirit of Democracy, pp. 179, 185. 

25 Spirit of Democracy, pp. 71-72. 

359 



26 Signs of Promise, pp. 205, 209. 

27 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 208, 209. 

28 Problems of Life, pp. 2, 7. 

New Streams in Old Channels, p. 208. 

29 Spirit of Democracy, pp. 74-75. Outlook, July 12, 1913. 

30 Spirit of Democracy, pp. 91-92. 

31 New Streams in Old Channels, p. 60. 
Signs of Promise, p. 206. 

JUNE 

1 Spirit of Democracy, pp. 84-87. 

2 Twentieth Century Crusade, pp. 68-69. 

3 Outlook, Jan. 13, 1900. Problems of Life, p. 8. 

4 Twentieth Century Crusade, pp. 15-16. 

5 Twentieth Century Crusade, pp. 69-70. 

6 America in the Making, p. 187. 
Spirit of Democracy, p. 101. 

7 &pm7 o/ Democracy, pp. 135-146. 

8 &pz'nY o/ Democracy, pp. 146-155. 

9 £pm£ o/ Democracy, pp. 172-174. 

10 Spirit of Democracy, pp. 175-177. 

11 /Spm£ o/ Democracy, pp. 198-215. 

12 America in the Making, pp. 16-18. 

13 fligrfas o/ Man, p. 82. 

America in the Making, pp. 18-26. 

14 Spirit of Democracy, pp. 87-88. 

15 America in the Making, pp. 43-47. 

16 Life That Really Is, S. 2, p. 7. 
Outlook, Sept. 17, 1919. 

17 America in the Making, pp. 48-49, 62. 
Christianity and Social Problems, p. 369. 

18 America in the Making, p. 66. 

19 America in the Making, pp. 97-98. 
Problems of Life, p. 92. 

20 America in the Making, pp. 113-125. 

21 America in the Making, pp. 126-139. 

22 America in the Making, pp. 146-153. 

23 America in the Making, pp. 162-165. 

360 



24 America in the Making, pp. 166-168. 

25 America in the Making, pp. 170-179. 

26 America in the Making, pp. 227-228. 

27 America in the Making, pp. 198-204. 

28 America in the Making, pp. 212-222. 

29 America in the Making, pp. 224-225. 
Rights of Man, p. 213. 

30 Rights of Man, pp. 1-10. 

JULY 

1 Rights of Man, pp. 276-295. 

2 Spirit of Democracy, pp. 26-27. 
Twentieth Century Crusade, pp. 64, 81. 
Christianity and Social Problems, p. 56. 

3 Last Days of Jesus Christ, pp. 5-11. 

4 Life That Really Is, S. 10, pp. 1-2. 

5 Rights of Man, pp. 368-369. 
Christ's Secret of Happiness, pp. 33-34. 

6 Rights of Man, pp. 362-365. 

7 Signs of Promise, p. 103. 

8 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 19-21. 

9 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 58-62. 

10 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 72, 88. 

11 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 82-86. 

12 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 92-93. 

13 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 125. 

14 Rights of Man, pp. 367-368. 

15 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 167-174. 

16 Christianity and Social Problems, p. 178. 
Christian Ministry, p. 154. 

17 Christianity and Social Problems, p. 204. 

18 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 223, 221. 

19 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 283-295. 
Signs of Promise, p. 235. 

20 Christianity and Social Problems, p. 225. 

21 Outlook, Aug. 21, 1918. 

22 Outlook, Aug. 28, 1918. 

23 Outlook, Aug. 28, 1918. 

New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 25-29. 

361 



24 Outlook, March 26, 1919. 

25 Life That Really Is, S. 5, pp. 6, 12. 
Twentieth Century Crusade, Introduction. 

26 Christianity and Social Problems, p. 245. 

27 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 248-250. 

28 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 252-253. 

29 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 262, 267. 
Lake Mohonk Peace Conference. 

30 Life That Really Is, S. 11, pp. 5-7. 

31 Life Thai Really Is, S. 11, pp. 9, 14. 

AUGUST 

1 Problems of Life, pp. 86-87. 

2 Outlook, Sept. 22, 1906. 

3 Outlook, Sept. 22, 1906. 

4 Life That Really Is, S. 8, pp. 6-8. 

5 Outlook, Oct. 10, 1908. Problems of Life, p. 81. 

6 Rights of Man, pp. 355-356. 
Life That Really Is, S. 16, p. 12. 

7 Signs of Promise, p. 20. 

8 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 353-359. 

9 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 310-316, 328. 

10 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 317-326. 
New Streams in Old Channels, p. 272. 

11 Outlook, Feb. 19, 1919. 

12 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 341-346. 

13 Life That Really Is, S. 8, pp. 14-15. 

14 Signs of Promise, pp. 83, 81. 

15 Signs of Promise, pp. 85, 76. 

16 Signs of Promise, pp 116-117. 

17 Signs of Promise, pp. 22, 124-125, 145. 

18 Signs of Promise, pp. 117-120. Problems of Life, p. 201. 

19 Life That Really Is, S. 1, pp. 2-5. 
Signs of Promise, p. 140. 

20 Signs of Promise, pp. 153, 154. Outlook, Jan. 30, 1909. 

21 Signs of Promise, pp. 166, 167. Outlook, April 14, 1900. 

22 Signs of Promise, pp. 167-170. Problems of Life, p. 113. 

23 Signs of Promise, pp. 170-171. 

362 



24 Life That Really Is, S. 8, p. 11. 
Signs of Promise, p. 173. 

25 Signs of Promise, p. 182. 

26 Signs of Promise, pp. 184-188. 

27 Signs of Promise, pp. 198-204. 

28 Signs of Promise, p. 209. 

Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 367-368. 

29 Signs of Promise, p. 215. 

30 Life That Really Is, S. 4, pp. 11, 13. 

31 Signs of Promise, p. 218. 

Life That Really Is, S. 12, p. 7. 

SEPTEMBER 

1 Signs of Promise, pp. 220, 224. 

2 Signs of Promise, pp. 258-263. 

3 Signs of Promise, p. 264. Life That Really Is, S. 1, p. 6. 

4 Signs of Promise, pp. 266, 268. 
Life That Really Is, S. 19, p. 8. 

5 Signs of Promise, pp. 270-271. 
Life That Really Is, S. 16, p. 6. 

6 Signs of Promise, p. 280. 

Christ's Secret of Happiness, pp. 41-42. 

7 Signs of Promise, pp. 285-286. 

8 Signs of Promise, p. 298. 

9 Signs of Promise, pp. 293-297. 

10 Outlook, Sept. 1, 1906. Problems of Life, p. 295. 

11 Christian Ministry, pp. 5-19. 

12 Christian Ministry, pp. 257-261. 

13 Christian Ministry, pp. 286-288. 

14 Christian Ministry, p. 298. Problems of Life, p. 302. 

15 Outlook, March 26, 1919. Outlook, Jan. 30, 1909. 

16 Christian Ministry, pp. 306-307. 

17 Christian Ministry, pp. 273-274. 

18 Twentieth Century Crusade, pp. 37-38. 

19 Christian Ministry, pp. 46, 52, 63. Rights of Man, p. 333. 

20 Christian Ministry, pp. 111-114. Outlook, July 5, 1913. 

21 Problems of Life, pp. 106-109. 
Reminiscences, pp. 333-334, 370. 

363 



22 Christian Ministry, pp. 116-124. 

23 Christian Ministry, pp. 135-138. Outlook, Jan. 22, 1919. 

24 Christianity and Social Problems, pp. 360-364. 

25 Christian Ministry, pp. 316, 312. 

26 Christian Ministry, pp. 174-176. 

27 iVeiu Streams in Old Channels, pp. 85-86. 

28 New Streams in Old Channels, p. 88. 
Christian Ministry, pp. 181-182. 

29 Life That Really Is, S. 7, p. 10. 
Problems of Life, pp. 100-102. 

New Streams in Old Channels, p. 303. 

30 Life That Really Is, S. 19, p. 7. 

Outlook, Jan. 25, 1913. Signs of Promise, p. 231. 

OCTOBER 

1 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 301-302. 

2 Signs of Promise, pp. 62-68. Reminiscences, pp. 362-363. 

3 Outlook, March 12, 1919. 

4 Outlook, March 19, 1919. 

5 Twentieth Century Crusade, pp. 85-86. 

6 Christian Ministry, pp. 141-142. 

7 Christ's Secret of Happiness, p. 69. 
Lt/e 77ia£ #ea% Is, S. 2, pp. 5-6. 

8 Twentieth Century Crusade, pp. 82-83, 81. 

9 Life That Really Is, S. 3, pp. 1-2. 

10 Life That Really Is, S. 6, p. 10. 
Signs of Promise, pp. 227-228. 

11 Life That Really Is, S. 6, pp. 12-13. 

12 Problems of Life, pp. 113-115. 

13 Life That Really Is, S. 12, pp. 4-5. 

14 Life That Really Is, S. 12, pp. 9-10. 

15 Life That Really Is, S. 12, pp. 13, 10, 8. 

16 Last Days of Jesus Christ, pp. 25, 27. 

17 Outlook, Dec. 28, 1912. 

18 Life That Really Is, S. 16, pp. 14-15. 

19 America in the Making, pp. 196-197. 
Life That Really Is, S. 17, pp. 2-4. 

20 Life That Really Is, S. 17, pp. 5, 6. 

364 



21 Life That Really Is, S. 17, pp. 9-11. 

22 Life That Really Is, S. 17, p. 12. 

23 iVeiu Streams in Old Channels, pp. 137-139. 

24 Oirffoofc, Sept. 27, 1913. 
The Great Companion, p. 63. 

25 Lt/e 7%a* #ea% ^ s > s - 19 > PP- 3-5. 
Christianity and Social Problems, p. 131. 

26 Life That Really Is, S. 19, pp. 5-6. 

27 Life That Really Is, S. 19, p. 8. 

28 Life That Really Is, S. 19, pp. 8, 9. 

29 Life That Really Is, S. 19, pp. 9-10. 

30 Life That Really Is, S. 13, pp. 8-11. 

31 New Streams in Old Channels, p. 226. 

NOVEMBER 

1 Life That Really Is, S. 21, pp. 11, 12. 

2 Life That Really Is, S. 22, p. 7. 

3 Life That Really Is, S. 22, p. 8. 
Last Days of Jesus Christ, p. 57. 

4 New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 290-291. 

5 Christ's Secret of Happiness, p. 10. 

6 Christ's Secret of Happiness, pp. 11-12. 

7 Christ's Secret of Happiness, pp. 19-20. 

8 Christ's Secret of Happiness, pp. 23-24. 

9 Christ's Secret of Happiness, pp. 26, 24-25. 
Signs of Promise, p. 135. 

10 Problems of Life, p. 271. 

New Streams in Old Channels, pp. 102-103. 

11 Life That Really Is, S. 25, pp. 4-5. 
New Streams in Old Channels, p. 241. 

12 Christ's Secret of Happiness, pp. 3-6. 

13 Outlook, Sept. 29, 1906. 

14 Christ's Secret of Happiness, p. 77. 

15 Outlook, Sept. 29, 1906. 

16 Christ's Secret of Happiness, pp. 79-80. 
Outlook, Sept. 29, 1906. 

17 My Four Anchors, pp. 39-40. 

18 My Four Anchors, pp. 37-38. 

365 



19 My Four Anchors, pp. 11-13. 

20 The Great Companion, pp. 12-16. 

21 The Great Companion, pp. 17, 24, 26. 

22 The Great Companion, pp. 27-28. 

23 The Great Companion, pp. 31-34. 

24 The Great Companion, pp. 45-47. 

25 The Great Companion, p. 58. Problems of Life, p. 121, 

26 The Great Companion, pp. 59-61. 

27 The Great Companion, pp. 68-70. 

28 Reminiscences, p. 362. 

29 The Great Companion, pp. 75-79. 

30 The Great Companion, pp. 83-85. 

DECEMBER 

1 Christ's Secret of Happiness, pp. 55-56. 
Twentieth Century Crusade, p. 108. 

2 Christ's Secret of Happiness, p. 56. 
The Great Companion, pp. 61-62. 

3 Last Days of Jesus Christ, pp. 87-88. 
Twentieth Century Crusade, pp. 80-81. 

4 Reminiscences, pp. 379-380. 

5 The Great Companion, pp. 90-91, 101. 

6 The Great Companion, pp. 105-109. 

7 The Great Companion, pp. 110-111. 

8 The Great Companion, pp. 117-119. 

9 The Great Companion, pp. 123-124. 

10 The Great Companion, pp. 125-127. 

11 The Great Companion, pp. 131-136. 

12 The Great Companion, pp. 145-147. 

13 The Great Companion, pp. 148-149. 

14 The Great Companion, pp. 151-154. 

15 The Other Room, pp. 14-16, 20-21. 

16 Love and Death, pp. 11-12. 

17 A Living Immortality, pp. 7-8, 23-24. 

18 A Living Immortality, pp. 24-26. 

19 A Living Immortality, pp. 28-30. 

20 The Other Room, pp. 44-46. 

21 The Other Room, pp. 59-61. 

366 



22 The Other Room, pp. 63-64. 

23 The Other Room, pp. 65-78. 

24 The Other Room, pp. 91-93. 

25 TAe Other Room, pp. 95-96. 

26 The Other Room, pp. 102-107. 

27 The Other Room, pp. 117-120. 

28 The Other Room, pp. 115-116. 

29 New Streams in Old Channels t pp. 161-162. 

30 Problems of Life, pp. 8-9. Signs of Promise, p. 71. 
New Streams in Old Channels, p. 304. 

31 Outlook, July 29, 1907. 



367 



INDEX 

Alone 128, 129 

America of To-day, The 153, 154, 156, 157 

America, The Duty and Destiny of 202-204 

Anchors, Four 312, 313 

Appetites, The 40 

Aspiration 3 

Battle, The Blessedness of 205, 206 

Behold, I make all Things new 12, 267 

Bible and Liberty, The 178 

Bible, What is the 236-239 

Body, The 30, 31 

Bride, The 116 

Brotherhood of Man, The 211 

Brotherhood, The Christian 207-210 

Care 296 

Character 46 

Character, The Secret of 234 

Cheerfulness 16 

Children and Poverty 165 

Children and the Home 164 

Children of God 28, 298, 299 

Christ 59 

Christ and a New Conception of God 281 

Christ's Help in Bearing Sorrow 305 

Christ's Law of the Family 134, 135 

Christ's Law of Love 61, 108 

Christ's Law of Service 186-188 

Christ's Laws of Life 145 

369 



Christ's Mission 63, 64 

Christ's Peace 96 

Christ's Presence Universal 7 

Christ's Standard of Values . 188-190 

Christ, To Live is 80 

Christ with His Friends 27 

Christ with Us 218 

Christ's Yoke 329, 330 

Christian Belief, The 276 

Christians, The 217 

Christian, What is a 25 

Christianity 73 

Christianity and Democracy 179-182 

Christianity and Happiness 185 

Christianity, Proofs of 69 

Christianity, What is 77 

Church 261, 262 

Church, The Power of the 196, 263 

Church to the World, The Message of the .... 192 

Church's One Foundation, The 225-228 

Citizenship, Our 297 

Companion, The Great 62 

Conflict of the Centuries, The 170 

Conscience 43-45 

Consecration, Whole-hearted 271 

Controversies, International 198-202 

Controversies, Law for Personal 191 

Controversies, Settlement of Labor 190 

Courage 13 

Criminals: Enemies of Social Order 213,214 

Daughter, The 113-115 

Dead, How Shall We Think of the 344, 345 

Death is Home-coming 347 

Death is Unmooring 348 

Democracy 173 

Democracy, Education for 146 

Democracy, Industrial 148 ,149 

370 



Democracy in Religion, The Spirit of 152 

Democracy, The Goal of 176, 177 

Democracy, The Perils of 172 

Door, The 328 

Ear, The 34 

Easter Message, An 86-89 

Education 142-144, 145 

Envy 300 

Eye, The 32, 33 

Faith in a Universal Presence 280 

Faith in God through Working with Him 223 

Family, The Hebrew Ideal of the 130 

Father, Our 288 

Feet, The 39 

First Pure, Then Peaceable ■ . . 197 

Forever, Does God's Mercy Endure 241, 242 

Forever, His Mercy Endureth 243 

Forgetting, Devout 5, 6, 333 

Gifts, The Use and Abuse of God's 295 

God 94, 95 

God, A Boy's Search toward 313 

God Creating 76 

God, Faith in 224, 325 

God, Growth of the Kingdom of 268 

God Pursuing 320 

God, Listening to 321, 322 

God the Architect of this World 29 

God the Invisible Power 93 

God, The Kingdom of 65, 66 68 

God, The Peace of 97-100 

God, The Quest after 315, 316 

God, The Living 82,306,314 

God, The Republic of 162, 163 

God, The Vision of ..." 323, 324 

Goodness, Inherent 17 

371 



Government, Origin and Nature of 150, 151 

Grace, Salvation by 232, 233 

Grandmother, The 126, 127 

Growth, Salvation by 231 

Happiness in Loving our Fellow-men 72 

Happiness, Three Kinds of 307 

Happy, Why are you not 308-311 

Heaven, The Kingdom of 67 

Holiness unto the Lord 24 

Home 139-141 

Hope, Saved by 19, 20 

Hope That is in me, The 273 

Housekeeper, The 123 

Idealists 155 

Imagination, The 42 

Immortality 92 

Immortality, A Living 338-340 

Immortality, The Practice of 346 

Industry, Present Conditions of 147 

Intuition, The 47, 48 

Journalism 35, 36 

Keys, The Power of the 229, 230 

Kingdom Come on Earth, Thy 26 

Leader, A Great 74 

Leader, Our 1, 49, 51-53,55-58 

Leadership 14 

Liberty, The Law of 75 

Life, A Godless Life is a Hopeless 282 

Life that Really is, The . 15 

Life, The Christian 79, 270 

Light after Darkness 100 

Light-Bringer, The 341 

Love 101-107, 108-111 

Love and Death 337 

372 



Man, The Unfortunate 301 

Marriage 131-133 

Meditating on God in the Night Watches 43 

Minister as Priest, The 260 

Ministry, The Christian 258, 259 

Ministry, The Function of the 252 

Ministry, The Fundamental Faiths of the 244 

Ministry, The Individual Message of the .... 254-257 

Ministry of Jesus Christ, The 84, 245-251 

Ministry, The Social Message of the 257 

Missions, Christian 264 

Monument, Her 112 

Mother, The 119-123 

Nature, The Spiritual 240, 241 

New Year, The 2 

Obedience in the Home 136 

Opportunity 10, 11 

Opportunity, The Door of 289-293 

Parents 137, 138 

Past, Forgetting the 4 

Peace, The Honors of 51 

Philanthropist, The 124 

Prayer '. . 58 

Prayer Answered 326 

Presence, The Hidden 316, 317 

Progress, The Law of 219 

Progress, The Necessity of 265, 266, 349 

Property is a Trust 182-184 

Religion 21-23 

Religion in Social Conversation 72 

Religion of Humanity, The 220-222 

Religion, What is 60, 283-286 

Remembering, Devout 7, 334-336 

Responsibilities, America's 174, 175 

373 



Responsibilities, Industrial 160-162 

Responsibilities, Political 50, 158-160 

Responsibilities, Religious . 166-170 

Resurrection 90, 91 

Righteousness, The Crown of 9, 78 

Right makes Might 40 

Room, The Other 336 

Sabbath, The 264 

Sacrifice 82, 83, 85 

Saint, The 125 

Salvation 81 

Salvation, A Power unto 234, 235, 269 

Self-sacrifice, The Joy of . 8 

Self-will and Humility 302 

Service for Christ 287 

Service, Joy is in 18 

Sin and Its Cure 215, 216 

Singleness of Purpose 54 

Slept, The First-Fruits of Them that 342-344 

Society 70, 71 

Sorrow, Comfort in 348 

Sorrow, The Joys of 303,304 

Spirit, The Fruits of the 330-332 

Theology, The New vs. the Old 277-279 

Time, The Accepted 351 

Tongue, The 37 

Unbelief, Help Thou mine 274, 275 

Vision, The Power of . 318, 319 

Watch 69 

Wife, The 117, 118 

Words 38 

World to the Church, The Message of the . . , . 193, 196 



374 



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